A plea deal has been reached in an animal-cruelty case involving a Stanislaus County egg farm where authorities found an estimated 50,000 hens without feed four years ago. More than 40,000 hens died.
Defendants Andy Yi Keunh Cheung and Lien Tuong Diep initially were charged with one felony count of animal cruelty each.
Cheung was the owner of A&L Poultry on South Carpenter Road, about a half-mile south of Fulkerth Road, west of Turlock. Diep operated Lucky Transportation Inc., a Ceres-based hauling company for wholesale poultry products.
On Tuesday, Cheung pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty, according to the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped the felony charge. Cheung was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Zeff also ordered Cheung not to engage in any commercial activities involving chickens. The judge scheduled Cheung to return to court Aug. 9 to determine how much restitution he owes.
Prosecutors dropped the felony charge against Diep, and she no longer faces any criminal charges in connection with the deaths of the hens.
Animal-rights groups said they rescued 4,460 hens that survived, but about 460 of them died afterward because they were too weak or sick.
Of the 40,000-plus hens that died, about a third starved; the rest were euthanized because of their poor condition, according to the Stanislaus Animal Services Agency.
At the time, authorities estimated the birds had not been fed for two weeks. The Animal Services Agency discovered the unfed hens in February 2012 after it received a complaint about the farm.
Timothy Wester, who investigated the farm on behalf of the agency, testified in a May 2015 preliminary hearing that he saw dead and emaciated hens, as well as a large amount of manure, inside the two barns housing the hen cages.
Martha Carlton-Magaña, Cheung’s defense attorney, has said her client did nothing criminal and was within the standards and practices set by the industry. An animal-rights activist had made arrangements with A&L Poultry to pick up hens that were intended to be euthanized, according to the defense attorney. But she says the activist didn’t pick up the hens.
In August 2014, three animal-rights groups settled their civil lawsuit against Cheung and Diep. The defendants agreed to pay $5,000 to the plaintiffs, which helped rescue survivors.
Cheung also agreed not to work with animals in the future and Diep agreed to limit her work to briefly transporting laying hens for slaughter.
The civil lawsuit was filed on behalf of Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary in Stockton; Animal Place, based in Grass Valley; and Farm Sanctuary, which is based in New York state and has a farm in Glenn County, north of Sacramento.
Rosalio Ahumada: 209-578-2394, @ModBeeCourts
This story was originally published March 24, 2016 3:02 PM.