Saving Gracie (9 page)

She told of slipping twice on excrement and how Wolf, witnessing her fall, apologized. She described seeing one Bulldog whose hind legs were splayed on the floor, unable to stand. Later she normalcarried out a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel whose eyes were so infected they appeared ready to rupture. She said Wolf asked her, “Is that dog dead?”

Many more dogs had paws caked with feces, Beswick testified. The dogs seemed wary and unsocialized. Some were visibly sick. She described seeing mice scurry across the floor, up the door, and down the hallway. By the time she left the site, she felt physically ill. The conditions “broke my heart.”

At one point during her testimony, Beswick paused, glanced up, and for a split second made eye contact with Wolf. He was seated across the courtroom, behind his attorneys, wearing a black suit, red shirt, and red and white tie. The eyes that stared back at her were vacant. She saw no remorse in them, no concern.

Beswick turned back to the judge. “All my time I was a law enforcement officer, I have never seen conditions so deplorable, so atrocious,” she said.

SPCA office coordinator Green followed her on the stand. She, too, described encountering a stench in Wolf’s residence—an ammonia smell “that triggered a gag reflex . . . you could actually feel it burning your lungs. It was very overwhelming.”

Green conversed with Wolf at length while the rescue effort was under way, she said. She said Wolf tried to impress upon her his concern for the dogs. Hoping to elicit more information from him, she responded sympathetically; anyone in his situation would have trouble keeping up with that many animals, Green told Wolf. Clearly, he had gotten in over his head. She said Wolf described to her his plan to fix up his house and sell the property. She suggested he might be better off bulldozing the house instead.

“Why was that?” Finnegan asked.

“Because of the condition of the house being covered in feces,” Green said. “Just filth everywhere . . . a combination of dirt and feces everywhere you looked. . . . I couldn’t possibly fathom how you could get the stench from his residence out.”

Green had helped process more than 200 of the dogs. Finnegan asked her to step down from the witness stand, walk over to the diagram of Wolf’s property, and mark with an X the two spots where she’d found baskets of puppies. It had occurred to Finnegan that a visual diary, compiled through photos and testimony, might best capture the chronology of the raid. Green pointed out the room in Wolf’s residence where she found half a dozen Cavalier puppies slumbering inside a closed plastic basket, on top of which someone had placed a half-empty bag of dog food. She identified the adjacent room where she found two English Bulldog puppies in another wicker basket covered with linens.

Under cross-examination, Wolf’s defense attorneys questioned the fact that, although she had no training or expertise, Green had been given the responsibility of deciding the condition of each animal. She only noted obvious problems, she said, and she had assistance with that task. It didn’t take a veterinary license to see pus seeping out of a dog’s eye or that an animal had a bleeding lip, Green said. The defense also noted that she never described any dog as emaciated.

Suzette Nicolini, a volunteer with the Chester County SPCA, was next on the stand. She testified about seeing a white board in Trottier’s room that said, “Lightening’s Papillons.” Written on the board was an indecipherable list of names and dates—Trottier’s attempt, apparently, at keeping track of which dogs had been bred to which.

Jennifer Danby, kennel manager at the Applebrook Inn pet resorts and a former SPCA employee, also testified briefly about her role in the rescue. Finnegan saved for last Kimberly Williams, an animal control officer for the Delaware SPCA, who arrived late the night of the rescue to help process the remaining dogs. She dealt mostly with the Papillons—sixty to seventy of them chockablock in an unventilated basement room measuring roughly twelve by fifteen feet.

“A lot of them had missing fur, skin conditions of some kind, gooky eyes, runny noses, I’ll say birth defects: malformations of how their feet should be and things like that,” Williams testified. She said she saw dogs running loose and stepping in fresh feces, mashing it on top of old, matted excrement. The temperature in Trottier’s basement was “hot and sticky and humid and nasty.”

Finnegan was elated with Williams’s performance on the stand. Her vivid descriptions left no doubt that Wolf was abusing his animals. She was the perfect witness to wrap up the prosecution’s case.

Now it was the defense attorneys’ turn. But Coates, Alice, and Iannuzzi called no witnesses. Not Wolf, Trottier, or Hills. Not even Stevenson, the veterinarian.

In her closing arguments, Finnegan emphasized the neglect that had been the hallmark of Wolf’s operation. By law, she said, Wolf, Trottier, and Hills were required to maintain the health and well-being of their dogs. Clearly, they had not done so. Unable to speak for themselves, the dogs had been forced into confinement, “and not only imprisonment but imprisonment in filth,” at considerable risk to their health.

She asked that Wolf, Trottier, and Hills be sentenced to a day in jail apiece for each of the 337 animals in their care. She asked the judge to fine the defendants, order them to pay restitution of $256,000, and require them to forfeit the animals to the SPCA so that they could be adopted out to new homes.

“We need to send a message of incarceration, even if only one day for one dog, or even one ninety-day sentence,” Finnegan said.

The defense argued that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had failed to identify which dogs were unlicensed or unvaccinated and therefore were unable to prove every element of every charge. The allegations of poor hygiene weren’t shown to be intentional, Wolf’s attorneys said. They said the animals’ ill health could be attributed to old age or other reasons.

“They cleaned the pens every day, at least once a day,” Coates said of his clients. “When you have that many dogs running around there’s going to be a mess, and you can’t clean it twenty-four hours a day.”

Attorney Alice described Wolf as “a knowledgeable individual about dogs. It was not his desire to be neglectful or to cause harm.” Wolf had so many dogs because he couldn’t bear to part with them, his attorneys said. He doted on them so much that he fed them hamburger and cottage cheese.

The attorney for Hills said that none of the dogs belonged to her and asked that charges against her be dropped entirely.

Wright listened to the defense team’s rationale with a rising sense of incredulity. These dogs had subsisted in filth. They had been mangy and sick. Did that not constitute cruelty and neglect in the eyes of the defense? She found it astonishing that anyone would try to argue it did not.

The hearing was over. Farmer announced that he would issue his ruling the following Friday, April, 28, and adjourned the court.

Earlier, during a break, Wolf had commented to a reporter that it was natural for his buildings to smell bad. He blamed the SPCA officers for some of the disarray. “They trashed my kennel,” he said. But as he exited the courthouse this time, Wolf avoided reporters, said nothing, and left.

Chapter 10: The Breeder Appeals

T
he next week crawled by. Finnegan and Wright still felt positive they had mounted a persuasive case and would carry the day in court. The question in their minds was whether Wolf and his cohorts would drag matters out by filing an appeal. Finnegan was all but certain they would.

The morning of April 28, Farmer wasted no time delivering his verdict. He found Wolf, Trottier, and Hills guilty on all counts of animal cruelty against 333 dogs, 2 birds, and 2 cats. He ordered Wolf to forfeit the animals to the Chester County SPCA. And he held Wolf liable for restitution and court costs—the sum of which now totaled $358,357. Trottier was ordered to pay fines and restitution to the SPCA of $85,438. Hills was found liable for $83,499 in fines and ordered to help Wolf pay $240,000 in restitution to the shelter.

Farmer forbade Trottier from owning animals for sixteen years. Hills was barred for sixty-six years, and Wolf was banned for life from owning animals, the judge said.

Farmer stopped short of putting the defendants behind bars; that would have been unrealistic, he said later. Even so, he had handed down the toughest sentence in the history of puppy mills, and SPCA officials were ready to celebrate. “We would have liked to see jail time, but we’re very happy with what the judge has decided,” McDevitt said afterward.

The victory was short-lived. The defendants had thirty days to appeal the ruling, and Coates announced immediately that Trottier planned to do just that. Asked what he thought would happen to the dogs until then, the attorney shrugged, “I guess they’ll just sit there until the appeal’s heard.”

Twelve days passed. On May 11, Wolf’s lawyers appealed the case to the Chester County Court of Common Pleas.

“We think the judge made mistakes,” was Coates’s explanation.

Finnegan groaned inwardly at the news. She knew all too well how easily summary appeals could get tangled up in the system. It might take anywhere from two to six months for a new trial to get under way. Even then, the decision wasn’t necessarily final. Wolf’s attorneys could appeal that finding to State Superior Court and to the State Supreme Court after that. The case could take years to resolve.

Almost three months had elapsed since the dogs were rescued. Tens of thousands of dollars had gone into housing them, treating their illnesses and injuries, and helping prepare them for new lives. The dogs were beginning to recover emotionally from their ordeal, but there was a limit to the amount of attention harried shelter workers could give them. For everyone’s sake, the dogs needed to move on to permanent homes, and soon.

The shelters were braced for summer, the season when their populations tended to swell. Asked by one newspaper if the SPCA’s resources were so depleted the organization might consider reaching a deal with Wolf, McDevitt didn’t rule it out. “I guess that could be a possibility,” he said.

Unbeknownst to the prosecutors, they had an advocate in Edward Griffith, the common pleas judge who was now in charge of the case. Griffith could have let matters languish. But he was acutely aware of the sprawling support system that had been erected to safeguard Wolf’s dogs. He made it clear he had no intention of letting the case get dragged down any further by delays.

Griffith got Finnegan, Wright, and Wolf’s attorneys on a conference call. He was clearing his calendar, the judge informed them. They’d better do the same. He’d already picked a date for the trial, June 19, and he insisted the lawyers commit to it. There would be no delays like the kind that had stalled the first trial.

Wolf’s lawyers appeared chastened. It was obvious the judge wasn’t going to tolerate any tomfoolery. His insistence on moving forward quickly did not bode well for them.

Five weeks passed. On the day the new trial was scheduled to get under way, the defense team suddenly informed the prosecutors that they were willing to work out a deal. The announcement caught Finnegan and Wright off guard, but they grabbed at the chance to resolve matters once and for all. Now all that was left was to hammer out a settlement.

The hearing had been moved to the main Chester County courthouse in West Chester, to courtroom number 1, the largest venue available. It had double the seating of any other courtroom, and on this day it was brimming with reporters and spectators.

Finnegan notified Griffith that a settlement looked possible. Then she and Wright met with the defense team in a nearby conference room to hash out details. They needed to decide the terms of Wolf’s, Trottier’s, and Hills’ convictions, the fate of the dogs, and the conditions by which future inspections of Wolf’s property could take place. The parties also needed to determine the level of fines and the amount of restitution the defendants would pay. Nearly every animal welfare organization that had taken in some of Wolf’s dogs had produced a different tally of room-and-board costs and medical expenses they had incurred; arriving at the total was going to be a task in itself.

The defense attorneys kept insisting that one of Wolf’s sons be permitted to keep a dog, despite the fact that the breeder himself would be banned from having any. Finnegan and Wright were equally adamant that no dog could be kept in Wolf’s home, period.

Before signing off on any agreement, Finnegan needed to run it by SPCA executive director Spackman. Spackman was amenable to a settlement of some sort. Her desire to see Wolf punished was tempered by the realization that the sooner the case was resolved, the faster the animals could be adopted out to real homes.

Finnegan also needed to make certain the terms of the agreement were satisfactory to Joe Carroll, the district attorney. The back-and-forth dragged on for hours. Griffith grew tired of waiting. At one point he called the case to the courtroom. Give us just a little more time, Finnegan asked.

Around 2 p.m., following a late lunch, the judge invited all of the attorneys into his conference room. He wanted to know the status of the case—whether talk of a settlement was genuine or the defense attorneys were merely pulling his leg. Gamesmanship of that sort had been known to happen.

The settlement was very real, the parties assured him. If that were the case, Griffith laid down a stipulation of his own: There would be no dogs in Wolf’s house, he said. Period. End of story. If any animals did, in fact, turn up, Wolf would be charged with violating parole.

The afternoon wore on. Wolf’s attorneys continued to propose changes to the terms. Wright was new to this kind of behind-the-scenes dealing and frustrated by the delays. The prosecution’s case was solid—they had no need to negotiate—and yet Wolf’s attorneys kept trying to call the shots. Late in the day, when the defense team tried to insist on yet another new provision, Wright ripped up a draft agreement in front of them, ready to call it quits. Finnegan stared at her in disbelief. “You can print that again, right?” she asked. If the agreement fell apart, the case would go to trial a second time, something Finnegan wasn’t about to let happen. Wright regained her composure and left to reprint the document.

In another conference room, managers of the various shelters that were housing Wolf’s dogs were gathered, ready to list by number the dogs who needed to be adopted. Veterinarians waited, having taken off the day in anticipation of being called to testify. The prosecution had arranged for as many as ten of Wolf’s dogs to be brought into the courtroom, if necessary, to help make their case. Shaw waited in the corridor outside, anxious for updates.

Finally, the prosecutors emerged. A deal had been reached.

The defendants never showed even the slightest remorse. They acted as if the filth and squalor of Wolf’s kennel represented the typical conditions at large-volume breeders. But Spackman got the sense that Wolf was frightened at the possibility of going to prison and that his trepidation gave prosecutors some negotiating power they might otherwise have lacked.

Despite the agreement, Finnegan didn’t feel nearly as confident this time around. It was one thing for the attorneys in a case to agree to a settlement. Having the defendants themselves sign off on the terms was another thing entirely.

She notified Griffith that the two sides had come to terms, and court was reconvened. The courtroom fell silent as the prosecutors strode in, followed by the defense attorneys and Wolf, Trottier, and Hills. Representatives of the SPCA and the other animal welfare groups filed in as well. Finnegan stood before the judge and outlined the terms of the agreement. It was a watered-down version of the sentence Farmer had imposed two months earlier.

Farmer had held Wolf liable for nearly $360,000 in restitution and court costs, and forbidden him from owning animals ever again. Under the new agreement, Wolf would plead guilty to sixty counts of animal cruelty. He would be fined $6,300 and, within a year’s time, pay $122,157 in restitution to the Chester County SPCA. Wolf would be banned from having contact with animals for fifteen years, during which time he would be subject to investigations by the Pennsylvania dog warden and the Chester County SPCA. His property would be inspected regularly to make certain he had no animals.

Wolf stood as the judge addressed him. “Mr. Wolf, you’ve heard Ms. Finnegan outline the terms of a plea,” Griffith said. “Do you accept those terms?”

Finnegan held her breath. Wolf could decide right that minute to back out of the deal. She closed her eyes with relief when he answered, simply, “Yes.”

Trottier and Hills also pleaded guilty to sixty counts each of animal cruelty. Trottier agreed to pay a fine of $3,000 and restitution of $31,304.50 to the SPCA. Hills agreed to pay a fine of $3,000 plus court costs. Each would serve fifteen years of nonreporting probation, during which time they would be banned from having contact with animals.

Griffith ratified the agreement reluctantly. As diluted as the deal was, it contained two key components: first, that the Chester County SPCA would be reimbursed; and second (and more important) that the dogs were free to be adopted out.

It was the end of the road for the case. There would be no more appeals.

Shaw was thrilled by the outcome. Minutes before the hearing, when she learned that Wolf planned to plead guilty, she’d thought, “No, he’s not going to do it.” When she watched him stand before the judge and admit his guilt, she let out a silent, triumphant cheer
.
Finnegan had done it—she’d gone after Wolf with a passion, and as a result, the dogs were saved. “She was the bright light in this whole thing,” Shaw said later.

Afterward, Wolf stood on the steps outside the courthouse, unwilling still to take responsibility for his misdeeds. “It’s sad that it has to end this way,” he told reporters. In court, attorney Alice had said Wolf expected to sell his property and would pay the restitution and fines from the proceeds. Outside the courtroom, Wolf said he had no idea how he would come up with the payments.

Some of the dozens of cards and letters prosecutors Lori Finnegan and Kate Wright received from across the country thanking them for helping convict puppy mill breeder Michael Wolf. (
Carol Bradley
)

Finnegan kept her comments brief. She’d never stopped thinking about Wolf’s dogs, she told reporters. Their fate was what mattered most. “I’m happy the animals are going to go home”—to real, permanent homes, she said. “I’m hoping that every one of these puppies can now be treated royally compared to where they’ve been. They’re all really beautiful animals, and they’re going to require a lot of spoiling.”