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Be prepared to debate either side of this story.
Egg farm Trespasser gets 6 months in jail.
By JIM MILLER
Finger Lakes Times
LYONS — Adam Durand was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail for trespassing on Wegmans’ Wolcott egg farm while he and other animal rights activists filmed conditions there in 2004.
Durand was immediately taken to the Wayne County Jail, but his attorney, who called the sentence excessive, said he may appeal.
Judge Dennis Kehoe, who called Durand the mastermind of a blatant and carefully orchestrated crime, fined him $1,500 yesterday and also sentenced him to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service.
“You entered your victim’s hen house without permission,” Kehoe told Durand. “You did this because you believed you were above the law.”
Durand, president of the Rochester-based group Compassionate Consumers, entered the egg farm three times. He and the other activists took 11 hens that they believed were sick or dying and later released a movie titled “Wegmans Cruelty.”
But Wegmans representatives have said they’re proud of their farm, and District Attorney Richard Healy found no evidence of animal cruelty there.
A jury acquitted Durand of felony burglary and petty larceny charges but convicted him on three counts of trespassing, a misdemeanor carrying a maximum sentence of 90 days per count.
“I believe you have a political agenda that results in your suffering from the erroneous delusion that your conviction is a ‘Red Badge of Courage’ instead of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ that it actually is,” Kehoe said. “You have made arrogant and self-righteous statements of justification. You have demonstrated by word and action your obvious disdain for your victim and the laws of the state of New York.”
Durand’s attorney, Leonard Egert, said he’d never seen a first offender get the maximum sentence on a misdemeanor, as Durand did on two of the trespassing counts. Wayne County Probation had recommended only community service for Durand, but Wegmans asked for jail time, Egert said.
“Essentially, the judge gave [Durand] the exact sentence that Wegmans requested,” Egert said.
Testifying during his trial, Durand said the activists removed the hens because they wanted to help them. He described hens covered in flies, trapped in manure pits and hens with their necks stuck in cages.
But by entering the farm, the activists risked infecting the hens with diseases, Kehoe said yesterday, noting they could have caused “death [of hens] on a mammoth scale” and enormous economic damage to both Wegmans and the community.
If the activists had truly cared about the hens, Kehoe said, they would have contacted the authorities. Instead, they chose to attack Wegmans through their film, he said.
“I would like to be able to order you to recover and destroy all of your illegally obtained and perhaps inaccurate videos, but, unlike you, I will follow the law,” Kehoe said.
Egert said he believes Kehoe was trying to make a point with his sentence.
“It seemed like he took into account a lot of other things surrounding this case [such as the film distribution] rather than the actual circumstances of it,” Egert said.
Kehoe said any sentence he imposed that did not include jail time might be perceived as tacit approval of Durand’s actions.
And that perception would be a mistake, he said.
Durand could be out of jail in four months with good behavior, Egert said. He asked Kehoe to give Durand time to make arrangements for his pets before beginning his sentence, but the judge declined, he said.
http://www.fltimes.com/Main.asp?SectionID=...
By JIM MILLER
Finger Lakes Times
LYONS — Adam Durand was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail for trespassing on Wegmans’ Wolcott egg farm while he and other animal rights activists filmed conditions there in 2004.
Durand was immediately taken to the Wayne County Jail, but his attorney, who called the sentence excessive, said he may appeal.
Judge Dennis Kehoe, who called Durand the mastermind of a blatant and carefully orchestrated crime, fined him $1,500 yesterday and also sentenced him to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service.
“You entered your victim’s hen house without permission,” Kehoe told Durand. “You did this because you believed you were above the law.”
Durand, president of the Rochester-based group Compassionate Consumers, entered the egg farm three times. He and the other activists took 11 hens that they believed were sick or dying and later released a movie titled “Wegmans Cruelty.”
But Wegmans representatives have said they’re proud of their farm, and District Attorney Richard Healy found no evidence of animal cruelty there.
A jury acquitted Durand of felony burglary and petty larceny charges but convicted him on three counts of trespassing, a misdemeanor carrying a maximum sentence of 90 days per count.
“I believe you have a political agenda that results in your suffering from the erroneous delusion that your conviction is a ‘Red Badge of Courage’ instead of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ that it actually is,” Kehoe said. “You have made arrogant and self-righteous statements of justification. You have demonstrated by word and action your obvious disdain for your victim and the laws of the state of New York.”
Durand’s attorney, Leonard Egert, said he’d never seen a first offender get the maximum sentence on a misdemeanor, as Durand did on two of the trespassing counts. Wayne County Probation had recommended only community service for Durand, but Wegmans asked for jail time, Egert said.
“Essentially, the judge gave [Durand] the exact sentence that Wegmans requested,” Egert said.
Testifying during his trial, Durand said the activists removed the hens because they wanted to help them. He described hens covered in flies, trapped in manure pits and hens with their necks stuck in cages.
But by entering the farm, the activists risked infecting the hens with diseases, Kehoe said yesterday, noting they could have caused “death [of hens] on a mammoth scale” and enormous economic damage to both Wegmans and the community.
If the activists had truly cared about the hens, Kehoe said, they would have contacted the authorities. Instead, they chose to attack Wegmans through their film, he said.
“I would like to be able to order you to recover and destroy all of your illegally obtained and perhaps inaccurate videos, but, unlike you, I will follow the law,” Kehoe said.
Egert said he believes Kehoe was trying to make a point with his sentence.
“It seemed like he took into account a lot of other things surrounding this case [such as the film distribution] rather than the actual circumstances of it,” Egert said.
Kehoe said any sentence he imposed that did not include jail time might be perceived as tacit approval of Durand’s actions.
And that perception would be a mistake, he said.
Durand could be out of jail in four months with good behavior, Egert said. He asked Kehoe to give Durand time to make arrangements for his pets before beginning his sentence, but the judge declined, he said.
http://www.fltimes.com/Main.asp?SectionID=...
