Well, she's being charged with one count of deceptive business practices (Grade 3 felony) and four counts of theft by deception (two of them Grade 3 felonies, so that's a pretty big deal - if convicted she'll do time.
What doesn't amaze me in the slightest is that they've already found a way to skirt the regulations by getting a guy on the inside to set up the deal and having the transactions take place basically in the parking lot, thereby circumventing the pressure put on the auction house to verify and report animals with lip tats:
According to Rotz, a New Holland Horse Auction employee named John Whiteside put the horses in his trailer thereby avoiding them being sold through the auction ring, where it was more likely they would be identified as recently-raced Thoroughbreds. Many racetracks, including Penn National, have adopted rules in recent years punishing owners and trainers of horses that ended up at kill auctions. Anti-slaughter critics have said the tracks are not stringently enforcing those rules, however, and kill auctions help avoid detection of the ex-racehorses when they are sold privately.
Rotz told Trooper Shelly the horses were supposed to be auctioned off and that he was “nervous as hell” because Whiteside had made the same arrangements with him in the past. Whiteside asked Rotz if he wanted to buy the horses, and Rotz took them to his farm and weighed them. A subpoena of Rotz’ bank records disclosed that Rotz wrote two checks to Whiteside on May 21, 2011: one for $374.50 and another for $1,286.50, the latter check’s memo line stating “4 horses.”
If there's money to be made, believe me, there's someone who will take it.
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