PETA EMPLOYEES CHARGED WITH ANIMAL CRUELTY!!

Yup.......Whodathunkit??..........Heehee.........

"PETA foes salivate at cruelty trial

Animal-rights group employees charged in dumping of dead dogs, cats

Published: Jan 24, 2007 12:30 AM

Modified: Jan 24, 2007 03:07 AM

The News & Observer

Kristin Collins, Staff Writer

WINTON - All around this struggling farm town, chicken houses stand in

the fields as a testament to the way many here earn their living --

raising, slaughtering and processing chickens.

It is an unlikely locale for an unlikely criminal case. Today, two

employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a radical

animal-rights group that opposes meat-eating, are on trial for the

strangest of charges: killing animals.

PETA is based in Norfolk, Va., but its work has international scope.

The group, which raises more than $25 million a year from 1.6 million

supporters, opposes any human use of animals, whether for food, fashion

or research. In the more than two decades since its founding, it has

become a major threat to medical researchers, meatpackers, fur sellers

and others.

Now, two of its employees stand accused of tossing garbage bags full of

euthanized cats and dogs into a Dumpster behind a Piggly Wiggly in

Hertford County, 130 miles northeast of Raleigh.

Adria J. Hinkle and Andrew B. Cook, both of whom work in PETA's Norfolk

office, are charged with 21 counts each of animal cruelty, a felony

that can carry prison time, along with littering and obtaining property

by false pretenses.

It is a strange turn of events for PETA. The group's supporters have

often been prosecuted for their radical efforts to protect animals --

breaking into fashion shows to throw blood on fur-wearing models,

liberating lab animals, showing gory videos outside the circus -- but

PETA has never been accused of hurting animals.

Those who oppose PETA are seizing on the trial. The spectacle also has

drawn a gaggle of lawyers, PETA staffers, reporters and curious

onlookers to this rural county seat, where the small brick courthouse

resembles an aging elementary school.

Several potential jurors were thrown out after saying they had read

about the case, gossiped about it at work or formed strong opinions

about PETA. Defense attorneys threw out a handful of farmers and avid

hunters but left three people on the jury who work for a Perdue

slaughterhouse a few miles from Winton.

Now, jurors will decide whether Hinkle and Cook were, as PETA argues,

providing humane deaths to animals that would otherwise have been

painfully killed in gas chambers -- or whether, as several local

officials say, they were taking animals on the promise of finding them

homes and secretly killing them.

A PETA spokeswoman, Kathy Guillermo, said PETA never wanted to get into

the business of euthanizing animals. But she said the group couldn't

ignore the horrible conditions in animal shelters around Norfolk and in

northeastern North Carolina. The group now euthanizes thousands of

animals a year.

"Euthanasia is a better alternative to sitting in a stinking pound,"

Guillermo said.

PETA opponents are drawing attention to this little-known facet of the

group's work.

On Monday morning, the Washington D.C.-based Center for Consumer

Freedom, an anti-PETA group funded by restaurants and meat producers,

drove a mobile billboard truck reading "PETA: As Warm and Cuddly as You

Thought?" past the courthouse.

David Martosko, research director for the group, described the case as

a gift in his fight to discredit PETA. He plans to monitor the entire

trial.

"Most people would not believe, if you told them two years ago, that

PETA kills animals. They'd say, 'What? They're the bunny huggers,' "

Martosko said.

Martosko and Stephanie Maltz, a lawyer with the Foundation for

Bio-Medical Research, a Washington, D.C., group that lobbies for animal

testing, paid a visit Monday night to the trash bin where the animals

were dumped.

It was dark, and a man with a flashlight was rooting through the

garbage, but Maltz was undeterred. She jumped out of the car and took a

picture of the grime-stained container for her group's Web site. "