Staunton woman loses appeal in cruelty case

By Jimmy LaRoue

Published: July 30, 2008

The owner of a Staunton horse facility lost her appeal Wednesday on animal cruelty charges, though her sentence was reduced.
An Augusta County Circuit Court judge found Terry Lynn Sullivan, 59, guilty of animal cruelty and sentenced her to 12 months in jail, with six months suspended on condition that she not own or possess horses for the next two years.
Circuit Court Judge Victor V. Ludwig said that in his view, the horse didn’t seem healthy and said that Sullivan either ignored clear evidence of the horse’s distress, or she didn’t uncover the blanket covering the horse to inspect its condition as much as she said she did.
“I simply reject Ms. Sullivan’s testimony and I find her guilty,” said Judge Victor V. Ludwig.
Augusta County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert J. Boylan said her behavior “is so egregious ... that I do argue that a jail sentence is appropriate.”
Sullivan, the president and executive director of the Fern Leigh Equine Research Foundation, was originally found guilty in Augusta County General District Court of the same charge and was, at the time, sentenced to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine, the maximum penalty allowed by law.
Her attorney, Dana Cormier, indicated that Sullivan would appeal the decision to the Virginia Court of Appeals. The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office took Sullivan into custody pending her posting $3,500 bond.
Sullivan was originally charged in April after a neighbor – Bridgette Berbes – noticed an incapacitated, 20-year old mare lying in a pasture while driving past Sullivan’s property, located at 149 Shaner’s Lane in Staunton.
Berbes, on April 10, then offered to buy the horse, at which time Sullivan offered it to her for free in exchange for Berbes being liable for any costs associated with it. Sullivan said she told Berbes at the time that it wouldn’t be advisable to take the horse since she was told to euthanize it, she testified. Sullivan said she first noticed the horse distressed the day before.
Boylan, as he did in district court, argued that Sullivan had mistreated the horse. A necropsy by the Virginia Department of Agriculture determined that the horse “was in poor bodily condition,” with eroded teeth, protruding ribs, hips and spine, a “serious atrophy of fat” in the heart and several lesions on its organs.
Cormier argued in his opening statement that the necropsy report showed the horse dying from naturally occurring toxins, and that the horse had food in its intestines, showing “rapid” deterioration.
However, three separate veterinarians later testified that the horse’s deterioration, based on the necropsy, would have had to occur over a matter of weeks, not days, as Sullivan testified.
Boylan asked Dr. David W. Brown about the horse’s protruding ribs, asking how long it would have taken for that condition to arise.
“We’re talking weeks,” Brown said.
Another veterinarian, Dr. William S. Hunter, of the Westwood Animal Hospital, testified that he had a phone conversation with Sullivan about the horse’s deteriorating condition. She told him that that it had been down for two days without getting up.
Sullivan, in her testimony, said it was common for the horse, which she had for 20 years, lay down. Hours later, she said the horse was running around. 
Recalling the conversation, Hunter said she had a previous horse in a similar condition and was told to euthanize it. Hunter said that was an option for her in this case, also, but expressed surprise that she waited to call.
“To have one down for two days was quite surprising to me,” Hunter said.
Boylan showed Hunter a picture of the horse, with ribs protruding, also asking him how long it would take for the horse to get to that condition.
“It’s going to take a matter of weeks or months, or so, to get a horse down to this condition,” Hunter said, adding that he couldn’t remember a time when any horse he had seen that had been down for a day or two and lived, “even with medical treatment.”
Hunter said some of Sullivan’s 35 horses were too thin, adding that it was a sign that the horses were not healthy.
Berbes testified that when she went to see the horse up close on April 10, she found it under a purple blanket “soaking wet” with sweat. When she took possession the horse, it took six people to move it into a trailer, she said. The horse, she said, died the next day.
Veterinarian Scott Reiners, called by Berbes to look at the horse, said he found it “non-responsive [and] very dehydrated.”
He said he started intravenous fluids and administered drugs to the horse on Sullivan’s property to improve its condition. He said he used an IV because the horse was unable to pick up its head. He put 22 liters of fluids into the horse there, and another six liters at an animal hospital, describing the horse as being “almost in a comatose state.”
Sullivan said she noticed the horse acting distressed on April 9, and that, early the next morning, it “seemed all right.” By noon, however, the horse was on its side, she said, at which time she called Hunter.
During his closing argument, Boylan said that three different veterinarians, who testified earlier in the proceedings, all described the horse as emaciated and wasting away.
However, Cormier argued that there was no evidence that Sullivan “deprived this horse of food or water – or shelter for that matter.”
“I don’t think that there’s anything criminal that Ms. Sullivan has done here,” Cormier said.
Boylan, meanwhile, said that he was “practically dumbstruck. I think that the evidence is so overwhelming.”