Zoe Rosenberg, an animal rights activist and investigator with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), has been found guilty of felony conspiracy and three misdemeanors after rescuing four chickens from a slaughterhouse in the United States.
The verdict was reached by a jury in Santa Rosa on Wednesday, following a six-week trial. Rosenberg, who carried out the rescue in June 2023, now faces up to five years in prison. She will be sentenced on December 3.
Despite the conviction, she remains firm in her beliefs. “I will not apologize for taking sick, neglected animals to get medical care,” she said outside the courtroom.
Chickens rescued from Perdue-owned facility
The chickens Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea were taken from the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse in Sonoma County. They are now living at a sanctuary.
“When we see cruelty and violence, we can choose to ignore it or to intervene and try to make the world a better place. I chose to intervene, and because I did, Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea are alive today. For that, I will never be sorry,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg said she was motivated to act after years of investigations into the facility. The investigations revealed animals suffering from untreated wounds and starvation.
In a 2018 case, local authorities examined birds from a Petaluma Poultry farm and found severe neglect; however, the farm was never prosecuted.
Criticism of public resources used for prosecution
Petaluma Poultry is owned by Perdue Foods, one of the largest poultry companies in the United States. Rosenberg’s legal team criticized the county for spending public resources to protect a multi-billion-dollar company.
“Sonoma County spent over six weeks and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to protect a multi-billion-dollar corporation from the rescue of four chickens worth less than $25,” said Chris Carraway, a staff attorney at the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project.
“No doubt, the District Attorney’s office would never have spent a fraction of this time or money if the chickens had been dead in a supermarket meat case,” he added.
The court placed strict limits on what the jury could hear about past animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry. The conditions at the slaughterhouse helped shape Rosenberg’s decision to act. She was also not allowed to use a “necessity defense“. This is a legal argument that the rescue was justified to prevent greater harm.
Rosenberg’s legal team plans to appeal the conviction.
Judge Kenneth Gnoss denied the prosecutor’s request to send her directly to jail, noting her clean record and serious health concerns due to Type 1 Diabetes. She remains under GPS monitoring until sentencing.
In addition to the felony charge, Rosenberg was convicted of trespassing with intent to disrupt, trespassing on agricultural land, and tampering with a vehicle.
DxE, the group Rosenberg works with, is known for documenting animal abuse through undercover investigations and for rescuing sick and injured animals from farms and slaughterhouses.
The organization says it will continue to defend the right to expose cruelty and save lives.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theanimalreader.com
