Letter: Here’s why these animal abuse cases MUST go to trial

Posted 7/12/18

The fourth week of July marks two years since t he second Medeiros tenant farm tragedy shocked and sickened Westport residents and people across the country. We became That Place where “the …

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Letter: Here’s why these animal abuse cases MUST go to trial

Posted

The fourth week of July marks two years since the second Medeiros tenant farm tragedy shocked and sickened Westport residents and people across the country. We became That Place where “the worst case of animal abuse in the history of the Northeast” occurred. Never mind that the second worst case happened on the same property six years earlier, with many of the same people involved — perpetrators who went right back to brutalizing animals the moment the state dismissed the case, and state and local officials who vowed they’d keep a watchful eye on the property but did not.

So where are we two years and 2,000 abused animals later? The cases of 25 Medeiros tenant “farmers” grind glacially through the Bristol County Superior Court, passed from judge to judge, from the Fall River court to Taunton. Multiple defense lawyers have banned together arguing all cases should be dismissed on grounds of illegal search and seizure. The word on the street is that, since property owner Richard Medeiros died a few months ago, the remaining cases will be plea-bargained, settled out of court.

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office cannot provide the public with any information except “to reiterate [their] commitment to the case.” We applaud the AG’s commitment, hoping it manifests in unrelenting pursuit of the most severe punishment possible under law.

More than anything, we want to see at least some of these cases go to trial. For it is only in the courtroom that the grisly trove of meticulously collected and archived photos and supporting documents will be made public. Only in the courtroom will we hear expert testimony of the horrifically pitiful conditions of the animals. Only then will most people begin to grasp the heinousness of these crimes.

We hope that “most people” will include our own state representative Paul Schmid who, brushing off the appalling scope of the carnage, told two of our members that the real number of Medeiros Farm II victims was not 1,400 (as the Westport Police and ASPCA had documented) but closer to “a couple hundred,” as if the lower number made it not so bad after all.

Why is it so important for the public to bare witness to this terrible suffering? Because we need a motivated electorate to press our state legislators into passing much more binding laws against animal cruelty, laws that indulgent judges cannot cast aside at whim.

Thus far, no other indictments related to the Medeiros tenant farm have been served, although there is ample evidence that Westport Board of Health officials falsified state animal inspection reports and were clearly derelict in their duties. Even after the horrors found on the property six years earlier, our BOH and the Massachusetts Division of Agricultural Resources turned a blind eye on those 75 acres of filth and agony off American Legion Highway.

All this as our assessors continued to allow Medeiros the Chapter 61A tax exemption for 50 of the acres, effectively turning the rest of us into subsidizing accomplices.

Still we wait for justice for the 1,400 hundred animals of Medeiros II and the 600 animals of Medeiros I. Let us hope our state prosecutors are committed enough to justice to drag the Medeiros tenant farm animal abusers into the courtroom, where evidence of their cruelty is displayed for all to see and judge. And may that happen before we mark the third year of this tragedy.

Constance Gee

Westport

Ms. Gee writes on behalf of Stop the Insanity Westport!

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