The owner of an Ohio dairy at the center of a recent animal-abuse video won’t face criminal charges, a grand jury has decided.
The grand jury met last week and heard testimony from an Ohio Department of Agriculture veterinarian, the Union County Humane Society and others before deciding that dairy producer Gary Conklin did nothing criminal, according to Union County Prosecutor David Phillips.
An animal welfare group secretly recorded the video that it said showed cattle being abused.
Jurors saw hours of video tape recorded by an undercover employee of the animal-rights group, Mercy For Animals, not just the few minutes that group posted on YouTube, Phillips said.
On the tape, Conklin employee Billy Joe Gregg is seen viciously beating and abusing cows and calves at the Plain City farm. Gregg has since been fired. He has been charged with 12 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty and faces a felony weapons charge. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
