Direct Action Everywhere
Defendant Wayne Hsiung, who broke into Ridglan Farms in April 2017, above, says the dismissal of the case leaves unaddressed whether 'people have the freedom of conscience to help animals when they’re suffering.'
Dane County Judge Mario White today dismissed all charges against three animal rights activists who in April 2017 broke into a dog breeding and research facility near Mount Horeb and left with three beagles, heading off what had been scheduled to be a five-day trial beginning March 18 that was certain to draw national attention.
The dismissal was requested by the Dane County District Attorney’s Office, which in 2021 charged Paul Darwin Picklesimer, Wayne Hsiung and Eva Hamer with felony burglary and theft, for which they faced up to 16 years in prison. The office’s motion, from assistant DA Alexandra Keyes, was filed late on March 7, the same day that an article on the case was published in Isthmus.
The motion states that “the victims in this case,” the dog-breeding and research facility Ridglan Farms, had “indicated a desire to no longer have this case proceed to trial.” It said the victims had expressed “concerns for their physical safety, as well as for their business.”
At what had been scheduled as a final pretrial conference early Friday, two of the three defendants opposed the motion to dismiss. Chris Carraway, staff attorney with the Colorado-based Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, representing Picklesimer, and Hsiung, representing himself, argued that the defendants had suffered significant financial and emotional harm from being charged with crimes in connection with the removal of the three dogs from Ridglan Farms.
Payal Khandhar, a Madison-based criminal defense lawyer representing Hamer, said she was not taking a position on the dismissal but noted for the record that the three defendants had rung up nearly $100,000 in expenses in preparation for trial.
Carraway, in his comments to the court, said the Dane County District Attorney’s Office had “a track record” of not taking animal cruelty cases seriously. He cited two instances in which the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sought the appointment of a special prosecutor after the DA’s office declined to bring requested charges for animal cruelty. (Judges in both cases declined to do so, despite finding probable cause to believe that violations of the law occurred.) He said this was just another instance of the office “turning a blind eye” to credible allegations of animal cruelty.
Had the case gone to trial, Carraway argued, what would have been made clear is that what is happening inside Ridglan Farms “is unlawful animal cruelty beyond the pale” of what regulations permit. He said the dismissal shielded Ridglan Farms from this accountability so that it can “continue to harm animals and violate the law.”
Ridglan Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hsiung, in his comments to the court, said he was disappointed by the motion to dismiss, after enduring an “enormous expense in time and emotional toil.” He described how he had left his home in Berkeley to come to Wisconsin for trial not knowing when he would see “my family and my dog” again. He expressed his frustration that “the public still does not know what is happening in research facilities like Ridglan,” which the trial may have shed light on. He said the dismissal left unaddressed some “incredibly important legal and moral issues,” including whether “people have the freedom of conscience to help animals when they’re suffering.”
As Hsiung stated: “We did what we did because the government is not acting to protect the most vulnerable beings on this planet. And that has to change. That has to change.” He urged Judge White to appoint a special prosecutor to look into allegations of animal cruelty at Ridglan Farms, or, alternately, “to prosecute us.”
Prosecutor Keyes, asked to weigh in on the matter, responded to Carraway’s point that nothing had changed in the case from when it was set for trial and when she was asking that it be dismissed. “Just briefly, judge, I just want to say that what has changed are the death threats and the coming after the business which the victims have now started enduring,” Keyes said, adding that these threats have been “ramping up since the trial has started being prepared in the last month or so.”
White, in turn, noted that he had some authority to “either grant or deny” the motion to dismiss, and acknowledged the financial and emotional toll that the defendants had experienced over a period of several years. But he said he also had an obligation under the state Constitution to “take into consideration the wishes of the victims.” Accordingly, he was dismissing the case without prejudice, as the prosecution asked, meaning the charges could “theoretically” be refiled.
No evidence that Ridglan Farms had experienced death threats in connection with this upcoming trial was presented. Carraway said after the dismissal that he did not believe any were received: “The defendants here are committed to nonviolence.”
Hsiung, in an interview, said the dismissal affirmed “what we always knew to be true — which is that if a jury of our peers heard testimony and saw the videos from inside Ridglan Farms, they would revolt against the notion that we’re the ones who have committed crimes, rather than the company.”
