Woman convicted of animal cruelty

Ten years after receiving a suspended jail sentence for cruelty to animals, the owner of a Staunton horse facility was tried Tuesday in Augusta County General District Court by the same judge for the same offense in a separate case.
This time, the judge gave Terry Lynn Sullivan, 59, the maximum punishment allowed by law.
Judge A. Lee McGratty sentenced Sullivan to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Sullivan already has appealed the decision and the case will be retried in Augusta County Circuit Court.
Listed on an Internal Revenue Service Web site as the president of the Staunton-based Fern Leigh Equine Research Foundation, Sullivan was charged in April after a neighbor noticed an incapacitated horse lying in a pasture on Sullivan’s Augusta County property, according to court documents.
When the neighbor, Brigette Berbes, confronted Sullivan on April 10 about the obviously sick horse, Sullivan agreed to relinquish rights to the animal on the condition that she not be liable for any veterinary bills, according to court documents.
The 20-year-old mare was transported to an equine facility operated by Dr. Scott Reiners, where the animal died the following morning, Augusta County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Robin Boylan said.
A subsequent necropsy determined that the horse “was in poor bodily condition” with eroded teeth, protruding ribs, hips and spine, a “serious atrophy of fat” in the heart and several lesions on its organs.
Reiners testified Tuesday that the horse had apparently been deprived of food, water and shelter, and was in clear need of emergency treatment, Boylan said.
Sullivan’s own veterinarian, Dr. William S. Hunter, of the Westwood Animal Hospital, testified that Sullivan’s property was insufficient to support the roughly 30 horses she has been keeping there, Boylan said.
After finding Sullivan guilty in 1998 of cruelty to animals for “depriving horses of food, sustenance and shelter,” McGratty sentenced her to a suspended jail term and forbade her to own horses for an indeterminate period of time. Ambiguity as to the duration of that order is likely to be an issue during the appeal, Boylan said.
Sullivan has been released on a $5,000 bond.