LOCKWOOD VALLEY (Friday, Jan. 22, 2010, 7:45 p.m.)—Ernie, Cecilia and Joan Bor were all sentenced to six months in jail with five years probation Friday.  Each is to pay a $2,500 fine. All three of the Bors were in Ventura County Superior Court with their attorneys. Judge Bruce Young said the defendants’ compulsion to breed horses that they couldn’t afford to maintain “is analogaous to someone with a gambling problem—the next sale of a horse would make it better.”

There will be a restitution hearing in February, at which the prosecutor says she will ask that the Bors pay $37,000 to help cover some of the costs incurred by the Ventura County Humane Society in bringing more than 50 starving and neglected horses back to health. The nonprofit says it spent about $160,000 to care for the horses. Ventura County Animal Regulation estimated it invested another $150,000 to care for additional horses removed from the Lockwood Valley Ranch where a pile of horse carcasses was found at the rear of the property.

Alarmed neighbors had been seeking assistance from the authorities for over two years. They had seen what they say was extreme neglect.

Ernie and Cecilia Bor, along with his mother Joan, were charged with multiple counts of felony animal cruelty. In December they pled guilty just prior to going to trial. Each pled guilty to four counts of felony animal cruelty.

See the full report in the next issue of The Mountain Enterprise.
—Reporting by Alex Wilson

This is part of the January 22, 2010 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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