Earth Herbal

I get that the people started wanting to help people and animals, but this is going way too far, getting caught up in distraction. These people need serious mental help.

Kate Hammer
Toronto — From Friday’s Globe and Mail

The Toronto Humane Society’s president and chief veterinarian are facing criminal charges of animal cruelty for running a dysfunctional shelter where animals were allegedly denied food and water and left to die suffering in their cages.
The charges against volunteer president Tim Trow, veterinarian Steve Sheridan and three other senior officials came six months after a Globe and Mail investigation uncovered widespread allegations of problems at the River Street facility.
Toronto police officers and agents from the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals swooped in Thursday afternoon to execute a search warrant and lead five handcuffed men out of a shelter that the OSPCA’s lawyer derided as “disease-infested.”
“These are animals who are just left to die in their cages,” Christopher Avery, a lawyer for the OSPCA, said during the raid. “They’re found dozens at a time, dead in [a] cage, every morning in this building. Dying from cancer, suffocating based on phlegm, these are animals who are starving to death, literally.”
THS spokesman Ian McConachie said the charges were without merit. “The animals are under excellent veterinary care, they receive all medicines, all treatments, all procedures necessary to make them better,” he said.
“… Animals are not neglected, animals receive food, water, clean bedding and litter boxes every day and the dogs receive three walks every day.
A source said that the warrant was executed swiftly in order to avoid evidence being destroyed or tampered with. Mr. Avery said that obstruction charges laid against Mr. Trow, Mr. McCracken, Mr. Betchel and Mr. Bernadino stemmed from a June 2 inspection, during which animals were allegedly hidden from investigators.
“We received information that [on June 2] approximately two dozen animals were moved around the shelter and kept out of the eyesight of the SPCA because of the condition they were in,” he said. “There’s also a number of animals euthanized. In other words, the shelter management took active steps to ensure that [OSPCA] Officer [Kevin] Strooband was not able to properly conduct his inspection.”
Mr. Trow, Mr. McCracken, Mr. Betchel and Mr. Bernadino were all charged with cruelty to animals, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, and obstruction of a peace officer. Dr. Sheridan was charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and cruelty to animals. All five men were expected to be released on bail Thursday night.

Kate Hammer and Anna Mehler Paperny
Toronto — Globe and Mail

The Toronto Humane Society’s president allegedly ordered a shelter veterinarian to falsify medical records of a cat left bleeding in a cage for an hour after the president’s Pit Bull, Bandit, attacked the feline in his office.
This allegation forms the basis of one of the criminal animal cruelty charges the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals laid against Tim Trow, The Globe and Mail has learned.
Other tales of the River Street shelter’s alleged dark side trickled out yesterday as OSPCA investigators revealed what they say they found inside: dirty facilities, a dehydrated cat who hadn’t seen a vet in weeks, and a mummified cat in a cage in the ceiling panels.
That discovery “sent a chill right down my spine,” said Kevin Strooband, an OSPCA officer with 19 years of experience. “This is unbelievable. I’m still reeling … This is a house of horrors.”
The mummified cat was found metres from the office used by Mr. Trow, who denied all the allegations against him yesterday. “I’ve never been unkind to an animal in mylife,” he said.
OSPCA inspectors said the mummified cat, which was found in a live trap with an empty dish, may have slowly starved to death in the shelter’s rafters as veterinarians and animal-care workers moved about the hallways beneath it.
“That’s dry as a bone. It has to have been there for over a year,” said the OSPCA officer who discovered the cat during yesterday’s search. “Maggots have been there and then have left.”
Other animals were going without proper treatment for severe mouth ulcers and eye ontusions, the OSPCA said.
For example, investigators said they found a cat who was healthy when admitted Nov. 10, but had become lethargic and severely dehydrated. Upon reviewing its medical charts, the OSPCA said it found that the cat hadn’t been seen by a veterinarian since it arrived, and had lost nearly a quarter of its body weight.
“A large number of these animals … will need significant medical care,” said Johanna MacNaughton, a former THS veterinarian who resigned in April and later aided in the OSPCA investigation.
Mr. Trow, meanwhile, said he was shocked and perplexed by the charges.
“The Toronto Humane Society is a really good, humane place with good people involved,” he said in an interview at his lawyer’s office Friday.
“I hope all the board members and all staff members will vigorously defend themselves. I sure intend to vigorously defend myself because for the life of me I can’t understand charges like this.”
Mr. Trow was released from custody at Toronto police’s 52 Division early yesterday morning. His bail conditions prevent him from visiting or working at the shelter, and from contacting the staff. He said he is confident the society will be able to function without him.
“I have great confidence that the animals are being held and cared for,” he said. “After all, I’m a volunteer president, so I don’t do animal care myself. But I’m sure they’re being well cared for.
“It’s not a great loss to the animals if I’m not there for a while.”
OSPCA investigators seized more than 70 boxes of documents, or around 700,000 pages, from Mr. Trow’s home. Many were THS documents. Mr. Trow said other seized items included his own financial documents.
“I have copies of letters I’ve written and things like that, and they took those. … But they also took things like my income tax returns and my chequebook and things like that, which have nothing to do with the humane society. But I expect I’ll get them back.”
Mr. Trow said he couldn’t comment on the specific charges he faces because he and his lawyer haven’t seen the material on which the charges are based.
However, he said that in the case of the cat Bandit allegedly bit, he is “not aware of any medical records ever being altered at the Toronto Humane Society.”
Mr. Trow, general manager Gary McCracken and senior staff members Romeo Bernadino and Andy Bechtel were all arrested and charged yesterday with cruelty to animals, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, and obstruction of a peace officer. Veterinarian Steve Sheridan was charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and cruelty to animals.
The OSPCA is expected to continue searching the shelter all weekend and checking on the health of the approximately 1,100 animals who live there, including Bandit.
The pit bull-Labrador cross moved to Mr. Trow’s office after the city ordered it euthanized for biting a toddler in the head, leaving the child with a gash that required 200 stitches.
The OSPCA said the cat Bandit is alleged to have attacked was not only left to bleed in his cage, but also suffered broken bones and lacerations. “The incident is emblematic of the attitude towards care in the shelter – that a cat with a broken and lacerated limb would be left to suffer in its cage,” OSPCA lawyer Christopher Avery said.

The trash that led to THS arrests: OSPCA sifted garbage for evidence
Court filings allege hidden records

KATE HAMMER

December 8, 2009
Private investigators combed through bags of garbage and interviewed at least 40 Toronto Humane Society employees in their six-month probe into animal cruelty allegations that culminated in five senior managers being taken away in handcuffs late last month.
Court documents released yesterday allege that the investigators, working for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, uncovered a handwritten letter terminating an employee for a comment posted online, a cat’s kennel records and a Post-it note to “destroy records” among the trash at the curb outside the home of THS president Tim Trow.
The discarded documents were included by the OSPCA in its more than 100-page submission to obtain a warrant to search Mr. Trow’s Davisville home, his Chevrolet sedan and the THS’s River Street shelter. Lawyers for Mr. Trow and some of his co-accused have raised concerns regarding the scope and validity of the warrant.
In his summary of the investigation, OSPCA agent Kevin Strooband writes “the shelter and all responsibility for the cruelty ultimately lies at the feet of Tim Trow.”
The Globe and Mail
He alleges that Mr. Trow micromanaged the shelter, and that death, disease and filth plagued the animals there while Mr. Trow directed managers to keep euthanasia rates low for marketing purposes.
Mr. Trow’s lawyer, Andras Schreck, said he wasn’t prepared to comment on the information used to obtain the warrant, but added he did have “issues with the warrant” that he intended to raise in court “at the appropriate time.”
The OSPCA is charged with investigating animal cruelty, and lawyers for the THS’s leadership have questioned how items such as personal computers and documents included in the warrant could pertain to their investigation. Head veterinarian Steve Sheridan has hired lawyer Marie Henein, manager Gary McCracken has hired Scott Hutchison and some members of the board of retained Frank Addario.
“Although it’s difficult and frustrating for THS employees and the board, we are not going to engage in a public discussion about evidence that will be presented in court,” THS spokesman Ian McConachie wrote in an e-mail to The Globe.
He wrote that the THS understands “public interest in sensational stories” and that a complete picture of what occurred would be provided once the allegations are examined in a courtroom.
Those allegations include the case of an elderly, cancer-ridden dog named Tina who was bleeding from her rectum and returned to the THS on the morning of Oct. 28, according to transcripts of an interview with Cheryl Midgely, the volunteer dog walker who fostered her. According to Ms. Midgely, Tina was kept alive for a full day after a veterinarian recommended euthanasia because Mr. Trow noted the dog “seemed fine as her tail was wagging.”
A THS administrator, Laura Hendy, alleges she was directed by Mr. Trow to hide veterinary records and documents in her desk during the OSPCA’s inspection of the shelter on June 2. She and other staff allege that Mr. Trow and other senior managers directed them to hide cats from the OSPCA during their inspection.
A staff member named Elizabeth Anderson told investigators that in a 10-month audit of missed treatments at the shelter, she found that 3,004 treatments, including tube feedings, insulin injections and the administration of other medications, were missed.
Mr. Strooband and many of the interview subjects suggest that the shelter’s problems arise from Mr. Trow’s micromanaging and understaffing.
The notes obtained from Mr. Trow’s garbage are in Mr. Trow’s handwriting, according to the OSPCA’s investigators. One, addressed to a Michelle Perry, appears to be a letter of reprimand for arriving late to work. Another, addressed to a Sarah Russell, appears to be a letter of reprimand for ridiculing a letter of reprimand for poor attendance in front of the public. There is also a handwritten letter with no addressee terminating an employee for a comment that was posted on the Internet that disparaged Mr. Trow.

KATE HAMMER – From Friday’s Globe and Mail

The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals arrested two of its own yesterday, including one of its most high-profile agents, Toronto Humane Society agent Trevor Smith.
His jaw clenched, his hands cuffed, Mr. Smith, who was charged with two counts of personating a peace officer and one of perjury, was escorted into the back of a Toronto police vehicle parked outside the shelter.
Frank Addario, a lawyer for the charity’s board of directors, described the scene, which was captured by a handful of members of the media, as “unnecessary and gratuitously embarrassing.”
Mr. Smith, a media darling who rose to fame two years ago after he rescued a dog from a sweltering SUV and left its owner handcuffed to the vehicle, allegedly continued to act in an enforcement role after June 2, when the OSPCA suspended the THS’s affiliate status and his own status as a peace officer.
“He was conducting investigations, he was going into people’s homes, he was seizing animals,” said Christopher Avery, a lawyer for the OSPCA.
He said the perjury charge relates to an affidavit in which Mr. Smith claimed that he had not been acting as a peace officer.
The other agent, Mark Beauchamp, was arrested at the OSPCA’s Newmarket headquarters yesterday morning, on one charge of obstructing a peace officer. Mr. Beauchamp allegedly tipped the THS off that inspectors were on their way in June, when the OSPCA began their investigation of the troubled charity with a cage-by-cage inspection of its River Street facility.
“… The charges laid against our own Ontario SPCA agent indicate that we are serious about holding all investigators to the highest standard of conduct, not just those at the THS,” Kate MacDonald, chief executive officer of the OSPCA, said in a statement released yesterday.
Staff inside the shelter told The Globe and Mail that the tip led to a massive cleaning effort in advance of the inspection and that they were then instructed by THS management to hide animals from the OSPCA.
The animal welfare agency’s investigation led in November to the arrests of four senior managers and volunteer president Tim Trow on criminal charges of animal cruelty, as well as non-criminal animal-cruelty charges against the charity’s board of directors.

Josh Wingrove – Globe & Mail
Tuesday Dec 22

The Toronto Humane Society is scheduled to ask a judge today to quash a warrant allowing the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigators to search its offices.
OSPCA investigators have been in control of the THS’s River Street headquarters since a raid on Nov. 26, which coincided with the laying of criminal charges against the THS’s volunteer president, head veterinarian and three others.
OSPCA investigators were armed with a warrant that was obtained with an application that suggested they would only need five days to search the facility, the THS alleges in court documents.
“The OSPCA has effectively used the search warrant to seize control of the operations of the THS, and has repeatedly frustrated the ability of the THS to maintain its operations and business by denying THS employees access to essential THS records and computer systems,” the THS alleges in the documents.
The shelter’s lawyer is seeking an order “quashing the search warrant,” and a declaration that the continuing search violates the Charter rights of THS staff.
It is asking the judge to specify a date and time when the OSPCA must withdraw from the facility.
The OSPCA began investigating after allegations of animal mistreatment surfaced at the facility. It has seized documents and taken over animal care.
In court documents filed for today’s hearing, the THS cites continuing civil litigation between the two agencies and says the current warrant does not include provisions protecting documents pertaining to those civil cases, which it argues would fall under solicitor-client privilege.
The THS says it is the OSPCA’s “chief fundraising rival,” and that “the OSPCA has also publicly solicited funds and donations of supplies, ostensibly on behalf of the THS, but with donors being directed to make their donations directly to the OSPCA.”
It says the OSPCA is impeding the continuing operations of the centre.
“Private sector security guards contracted by the OSPCA continue to prevent many key THS employees – including those who have not been charged with or implicated in any criminal or regulatory offence – from entering 11 River Street in order to perform their jobs,” the THS says.
The agency also objects to the method in which the OSPCA has conducted the investigation.
“During the almost month-long period it has been executing the search warrant, the OSPCA has held multiple press conferences. Part of the search has been posted on YouTube,” the THS alleges.
The OSPCA contends it still has work to do in the facility, but declined comment last night.