Anne-Marie C. Arnold (Ann Arnold, Anne Arnold, Ann-Marie Arnold) of Fultonville was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly neglecting to treat an injured horse on her farm in the town of Glen.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department was tipped off to the injured horse, which had an open wound on its leg, and responded to the property June 5, police said. An investigation allegedly found that Arnold failed to provide medical care for the horse.
Arnold, 63, was charged with “overdriving, torturing and injuring animals: failure to provide proper sustenance,” a misdemeanor under the state Agriculture and Markets Law, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Deputy Angela Pingitore, who was involved in the investigation, said the horse in question had to be euthanized. Two other horses found on the property were given a permanent home by a private individual, she said.
Arnold, as well as her associates, have a history of neglecting animals within their care.
In 2012 she was convicted on 19 counts of the same failure to provide sustenance charge, one count for each malnourished horse investigators found on her Greenfield farm in 2011. Police at the time said the horses had not received adequate food and water and that their health had deteriorated to unacceptable levels.
“Any non-horse person could plainly see that most of these horses were literally ‘skin and bones’ and critically undernourished,” Greenfield Town Justice Michael P. Ginley said at the time.
Arnold was sentenced to three years probation and a $500 fine in the summer 2012. She was also made liable for thousands of dollars for the care and relocation of the animals.
During her probation period Arnold was forbidden from keeping horses. To get around this she allegedly transferred ownership of the Greenfield farm to her brother and brought 17 horses to the property later in 2012.
Justice Ginley’s order, however, was tied to property and not her ownership. Authorities at the time said the judge’s order actually anticipated the possibility she would transfer the Greenfield property to her brother. Arnold was charged with violating the terms of her probation and served an unknown amount of jail time. Ginley did not return a request for comment.
Arnold’s brother, Duane Carpenter, of Brookline Ave. in Albany, was convicted of multiple charges of failure to provide proper sustenance at the Greenfield farm in 2013 and 2015. A caretaker at the Greenfield farm named Joseph Foster pleaded guilty to two counts of the same charges in 2013.
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| Duane Carpenter |
Authorities in the February 2015 case said horses at the property, at 131 Wilton-Greenfield Road in Greenfield, did not have liquid water to drink. A pond and stream the horses normally use was frozen over, and conditions were so bad that firefighters were called to the scene and asked to fill a large tub with water for the animals.
Police ultimately seized 13 neglected horses from the farm last year.
It’s unclear when Arnold moved to Fultonville or obtained the horses in this latest animal cruelty case against her. It’s also unclear when she changed her name from Ann Arnold, which she was arrested under in the 2012 case, to Anne-Marie C. Arnold, the name she was arrested under Tuesday.
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| Duane Carpenter |
Both Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen, who handled the 2012 case as an assistant district attorney, and Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputy Theresa Pingitore confirmed that the date of birth matches for both names. Heggen and Pingitore, however, declined to go on record as saying Ann Arnold and Anne-Marie C. Arnold are the same person.
But a former neighbor of Arnold’s, who called authorities about conditions at her Greenfield farm in 2011, confirmed her identity to The Daily Gazette on Thursday after seeing a TV report.
“I saw it on TV, it’s the same Ann Arnold,” said Jill Cunningham, who was Arnold’s neighbor when Arnold lived at the farm in Greenfield now owned by her brother. “I said holy [expletive], she did it again.”
Cunningham said she began reporting conditions at Arnold’s Greenfield farm about eight years ago.
“I’ve been here 11 years and you would drive by and see it it was absolutely horrendous,” Cunningham said. “The horses would have no food during the wintertime and no access to water, no hay.”
“It was a nightmare,” she added.
Cunningham said she initially tried to help Arnold before coming to the conclusion she was habitually and willfully abusing her animals.
Sue McDonough, a retired state police investigator who spent 26 years probing animal cruelty cases, said she was involved in arresting Arnold on animal cruelty charges in 1997 when she was with the state police, and had personally secured a warrant for Arnold’s arrest. She went with troopers from Malta to serve the warrant at the Greenfield address but Arnold wasn’t there at the time. She was later arrested elsewhere by law enforcement.
“Personally I don’t believe she should be allowed to have animals anymore,” McDonough said Friday. McDonough now teaches Agricultural and Markets Law concerning animal abuse to area law enforcement departments.
McDonough said there should be a law on the books barring certain people who have repeated animal cruelty convictions from legally owning animals. Shesaid Arnold’s euthanized horse in this most recent case, if it wasn’t being used for commercial purposes, could be considered a companion animal in the eyes of the law, and that it’s up to a judge whether to bar Arnold from owning other animals.
“If a judge believes that’s reasonable he can say that,” said McDonough. “It might be challenged, but when you have a situation like this … [Arnold] just repeatedly neglects the animals in her care, so I don’t see why she should be allowed to have animals anymore.”
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department listed Arnold’s home address as the same address at 139 Egelston Road in Fultonville where they seized her horses.
A neighbor of hers on Friday said that Arnold had moved to the property last fall, but that he had never met her.
“I thought she had been taking care of them all right,” said the neighbor, Bob Freeman, noting that he had seen three horses on the property and that one had only recently been injured.
“They took the one that was lame and the next day the other two were gone,” said Freeman. He said deputies had some trouble rounding up one of the horses that was particularly wild, and expressed sympathy upon learning that the lame horse had been euthanized.
Arnold declined to comment Friday.
Earlier:
- New York: Greenfield horse owner Ann Arnold arrested for animal neglect again
- New York: Greenfield woman, Ann Arnold, convicted of 19 animal cruelty counts
- New York: Ann Arnold charged with second probation violation after horses found on property
- New York: Veterinarian treats sick horses by court order after DA tells judge that Defendant Duane Carpenter not caring for them himself.
- New York: Brother sister duo, Duane Carpenter and Ann Arnold, accused of animal cruelty
- New York: Agencies struggle to care for horses in neglect cases
- New York: Cops Say Albany Man, Duane Carpenter, Failed To Provide For Horses that he got from his sister Ann Arnold, who was convicted of animal cruelty
- New York: Horse put down due to injury at Saratoga County farm, owned by brother sister duo Duane Carpenter and Ann Arnold, surrounded by neglect allegations
