When Rescue Goes Wrong

There has been a copy of the complaint posted on the Piper facebook page. Trial is set for Mar 12/15 and the plaintiffs have requested a jury trial. The complaint has been vastly expanded to include the county commissioners, the animal shelter, and other directly/indirectly involved with the rescue. It will be interesting to see how far it goes now that the county has been sued.
 
Thanks for the update...
All I can say is heartbreaking to read.
Three more months ... Just unbelievable
 
Emmasmom said:
There has been a copy of the complaint posted on the Piper facebook page. Trial is set for Mar 12/15 and the plaintiffs have requested a jury trial. The complaint has been vastly expanded to include the county commissioners, the animal shelter, and other directly/indirectly involved with the rescue. It will be interesting to see how far it goes now that the county has been sued.
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Thanks for the update. Things ARE likely to get interesting if the commissioners and the shelter have been folded into the lawsuit. It has been my guess all along that the county shelter (and by extension the county commissioners), would likely be culpable in this matter if only by virtue of their poor handling of this and other incidents. (The animal shelter is the direct responsibility of the county commissioners.) An interesting aside to this mess is that the Franklin County animal shelter has been under fire for some time due to alleged poor management/operation of their business. It turns out that right about the time the entire "Piper" incident began, the shelter superintendent was fired/suspended from his post. Curiouser and curiouser!
 
I live in Ohio and being a 30+ year owner/lover of Shelties this whole thing makes me sick. This "rescue" director is a well know crackpot in Central Ohio but unfortunately they have the highest number of Shelties up for adoption. I am not certain whether not it's because what Sanderbeck has done but this thing is not going to go away. We are all watching carefully and the Columbus Channel 4 is following this story too. The 'bestinshow' site is also covering the story.

Despite the fact that I am looking for another rescue Sheltie, I won't go near this "rescue". I agree that the State Attorney General needs to take a look at charitable organization status of this rescue and have written a letter to that effect. Where on earth did this director come up with the bond money and the lawyer fees? From rescue funds?

Stealing a dog like this puts all rescues at risk.
 
What lawyer would even take this kind of case pro-bono?

I feel very bad for the real owner and what she is going through to get HER dog back.
 
This whole thing would be so much the better if the dog were produced and held by an appointed guardian during this time.

I really fear that when the time comes the dog will not be produced. They will have a certificate of death or she will say it was adopted out of state or country and cannot be tracked down or something.
 
There is a court order that she cannot be moved out of the county or harmed in any way. I would think they would be working towards producing proof she is unharmed. It would go really hard for the rescue if she is harmed in any way, given the court order.
 
Judyg said:
What lawyer would even take this kind of case pro-bono?

I feel very bad for the real owner and what she is going through to get HER dog back.
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From my understanding, this lawyer specializes in animal law. He has represented the Ohio SPCA in the past. He is probably anti-breeder, or something along those lines.
 
Jess041 said:
From my understanding, this lawyer specializes in animal law. He has represented the Ohio SPCA in the past. He is probably anti-breeder, or something along those lines.
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From what I can find out about attorney Bell's particular "animal related" point of view, I can't determine (yet) if he is ""anti-breeder" or not, but he DOES list himself as an "animal rights" attorney among other things. He has indeed represented the Ohio SPCA at least once , but I'll have to say, I was a bit surprised at the scope AND outcome of that case. Beyond that, I have found data that shows that at least twice, he has conducted seminars for the Ohio Bar Association (or the Columbus Bar) regarding the humane treatment of animals. I would agree that it seems that he specializes in animal law.

On the other hand, as horrible as I find the COSR's position in this case, I cast no particular negative aspersions against the attorney who takes on such a case. EVERYONE deserves to be ably represented in legal proceedings (even those folks that I think are dead wrong).
 
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