Man pleads guilty in another cow cruelty case in Chino
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A cattleman accused of housing cows in unsafe living conditions pleaded guilty today to a felony animal abuse charge, the San Bernardino Sun reports:
Albert Buitenhuis, 28, accepted a plea deal in Superior Court in Chino that included a sentence of fines and three years’ probation. Prosecutors say he failed to remove dead cows from a barn at his Chino dairy. There were six cow carcasses in the barn, including several in a water trough, said Beth Les, humane investigator for the Inland Valley Humane Society. ‘I’m glad with what we got’ for the sentence, Les said.
It’s not the only Chino-based cow case still in the courts.
This year, the largest recall in U.S. history of beef was prompted by an animal rights group investigation of another Chino slaughterhouse where sick cows were being abused.
One of the workers accused of animal cruelty, Daniel Ugarte Navarro, pleaded no contest this summer in San Bernardino County Superior Court in Chino to two felony counts of animal cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to downed animals.
He is scheduled to be sentenced Monday and could get up to a year in jail.
Another worker, Rafael Sanchez Herrera, pleaded guilty in March to three misdemeanor counts of illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal and was sentenced to six months in jail.
-- Francisco Vara-Orta