Cruelty To Animals

The city has placed two of its three animal control employees on paid administrative leave after an investigation into charges of animal cruelty, said City Manager Jim Hart. Neither the city nor local law enforcement would elaborate on the accusations. However, the Daily Press of Victorville quoted unnamed sources Thursday as saying some city employees had repeatedly put kittens and injured animals in cages and drowned them. One employee was put on leave Wednesday and the other on Thursday.

The head of Adelanto's animal control office has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty after investigators said he systematically drowned dozens of kittens over four months last year. Kevin Murphy, 36, was charged Monday with six counts of killing, maiming and abusing animals and faces up to six years in prison if he is convicted.

A man arrested in connection with the wounding of a mother opossum will not face animal cruelty charges, authorities said. Lorenzo Oliver, 54, was arrested last week for allegedly being an accessory to animal cruelty after a witness told police he saw Oliver's 12-year-old son beat the opossum with a shovel, police said. "There was insufficient evidence to charge him with any criminal offense," prosecutor Mark Logan said Thursday. The boy also was detained by police and then released to his mother, but the Orange County district attorney's office would not release details on any charges because he is a minor.

One of two men charged with animal cruelty after being seen on videotape apparently abusing cattle at a Chino slaughterhouse has been sentenced to six months in jail. Rafael Sanchez Herrera, 34, pleaded guilty Friday in San Bernardino Superior Court to three misdemeanor counts of illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal. Under the plea deal, he will be deported to his native Mexico after serving jail time. Prosecutors had said a jury conviction could have put him in jail for three years.

. -- This is a sight no self-respecting hairstylist wants to see: an inch of white roots showing, the remaining color dulling to a lackluster shade. "It is faded, isn't it?" sighed Joy Douglas, owner of Zing Salon, running her fingers through her toy poodle Cici's tight, once-pink curls. Nearly a month has passed since Cici has had her bimonthly treatment of pureed organic beets and egg whites massaged into her white coat while she basks under a heat lamp.

Concern about the conduct of deputies inside Orange County jails intensified Tuesday as the Sheriff's Department investigated reports that deputies used a Taser stun weapon on a cat at Theo Lacy Jail. A cat's corpse was found on jail grounds. The department was awaiting results of a necropsy to determine whether the cat found dead at Theo Lacy had been stunned with a Taser, sheriff's spokesman John McDonald said.

An animal rights organization is urging the Orange County district attorney's office to "vigorously" prosecute a man who took a video of himself abusing rabbits and a dog, then posted it on MySpace, calling his behavior "extremely severe." Joseph Anthony Deiss, 19, of Yorba Linda was charged last week with three counts of animal cruelty and three charges of animal abuse by a caretaker after allegedly throwing a pug and two rabbits 15 to 30 feet in the air and allowing them to hit the ground.

The Marine Corps on Wednesday said it was expelling one Marine and disciplining another for their roles in a video showing a Marine throwing a puppy off a cliff while on patrol in Iraq. The 17-second video posted on YouTube drew sharp condemnation from animal rights groups when it came to light in March. The clip shows two Marines joking before one hurls the puppy into a rocky gully. A yelping sound is heard as it flips through the air. "That's mean.

Los Angeles County animal control officials closed an Antelope Valley horse sanctuary Monday, euthanizing a dozen animals and relocating almost 90 more. Authorities also arrested Janis Damiani, the caretaker of Equus Sanctuary in Pearblossom, on suspicion of animal cruelty, according to the L.A. County Department of Animal Care and Control.

In a setback for the animal rights movement, a U.S. appeals court Friday struck down on free-speech grounds a federal law that made it a crime to sell videos of dogfighting and other acts of animal cruelty. All 50 states have laws against the abuse of animals, the appeals court said, but "a depiction of animal cruelty" is protected by the 1st Amendment. The ruling overturns a Virginia man's 2005 conviction, the nation's first under the law. Robert J. Stevens of Pittsville, Va.