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General News    H3'ed 9/28/10

Pitchfork Wielder on Dairy Farm Receives Light Sentence

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Last May he might have been the most hated man in America.

Billy Joe Gregg, a worker at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio was filmed holding down newborn calves and stomping on their heads and wiring a cow's nose to a metal bar to beat it repeatedly with a crowbar. He also stabs cows with pitchforks and twists their tails until the bones break, in an undercover video.

Public reaction was swift and unforgiving . Celebrities like Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Guest and Alex Baldwin spoke out. Legislators framed tougher cruelty laws. Police had to be stationed at the farm over the Memorial Day weekend because of fear of reprisals.

Even sheriff deputies were aghast and both the Ohio Veterinary Medical Association and American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMS) requested that Gregg, 25, be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

But last week when Billy Joe Gregg, in a red striped prison uniform, pled guilty in Marysville Municipal Court to six counts of animal cruelty -- he had been charged with 12 -- and received eight months in jail and a $1,000 fine, it became apparent what the limits of those laws are.

Not only will Gregg by a free man by May, a year after his deeds, perhaps to pursue his reported aspiration of becoming a police officer, the farm which employed him and tolerated his actions is also buzzing along.

In July, Union County prosecuting attorney David Phillips said no charges would be filed against Conklin Dairy owner, Gary Conklin because "in context, Mr. Conklin's actions were entirely appropriate."

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Martha Rosenberg is an award-winning investigative public health reporter who covers the food, drug and gun industries. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, is distributed by Random (more...)
 

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