The owner of a Hampden Township pet adoption shelter is again in trouble with the law after a state dog warden said she was involved in 113 dog adoptions after the license for her shelter was revoked.
Lori Jean Johnston, 47, who runs Molly's Place Rescue, is facing 113 misdemeanor criminal charges that stem from her allegedly operating her no-kill shelter illegally.
Johnston also was the target of a 2006 state police probe in which she was accused of having a surgically implanted identification chip removed from a dog to hide the dog from its owners.
In that case, Johnston's defense attorney, Joseph Gavazzi, said she went through the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program, a probation and community service-based program that allows non-violent first-time offenders to avoid a criminal record.
The most recent charges against Johnston, who runs the adoption center in the 5200 block of E. Trindle Road, were filed earlier this week in Cumberland County Court.
Kristen Penn, a state dog warden, alleges that Johnston transferred 62 dogs to other owners and acquired another 51 dogs after her kennel license was revoked in an order issued Nov. 8 of last year, according to charging documents in the case.
That revocation order was issued a week after Johnston was issued six citations related to her shelter. They included charges that she failed to keep her shelter in sanitary and humane conditions, provided false statements to authorities and failed to keep proper records.
Court records show that Johnston was found not guilty by a district judge on four of those six charges, but is still facing two in which she is accused of failing to have a health certificate for an animal and failing to produce a bill of sale for a dog.
Johnston also filed an appeal after her kennel license was revoked, but Penn, the dog warden, argued in charging documents that state law required Johnston to stop operating her shelter and prohibited her from acquiring or giving away other dogs.
Gavazzi, Johnston's defense attorney, in an email Friday argued the kennel license was still active until the appeal was resolved.
He also confirmed Friday the state Department of Agriculture, which oversees the state's dog wardens, filed notice that it has refused Johnston's 2014 kennel license and Johnston is also appealing that decision.
'I am saddened to see an agency of our government using its authority to wage war and systematically harass an individual citizen in an attempt to destroy her life's dream without cause or justification,' Gavazzi wrote in a prepared statement.
Samantha Krepps, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture, declined to provide a copy of the Nov. 8 order sent to Johnston revoking her kennel license. An administrative hearing to decide Johnston's appeal on her 2014 license has not yet been scheduled.
Gavazzi said that Johnston has rescued more than 12,000 animals, including 8,000 dogs, since she opened her Molly's Place Rescue nearly 10 years ago. He said it is a free-roaming facility, meaning the dogs are not caged.
Johnston in July of 2006 was charged with two counts of theft. State police alleged at the time that she hid Rex, a mixed-breed terrier, from his owners and had his microchip removed so that police wouldn't find him.
Johnston claimed the dog was infested with fleas and tics and that Rex's owners were abusive to the dog - claims the owners denied.
Gavazzi said Johnston still denies that she removed the microchip from the dog. He also characterized the incident as 'just another example of Lori being Lori, caring about the lives of abused and mistreated animals above all else.'
Johnston is scheduled to appear Feb. 19 in Cumberland County Court before Magisterial District Judge Kathryn H. Silcox on the charges that were filed against her this week.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar