Cruelty vivid enough to inspire a Nightline investigation and appear on CNN and ABC's World News would seem to warrant district attorney charges. www.mercyforanimals.org/dairy
But two months after a January television broadcast of calves' and heifers' tails cut off and horns burned with no painkiller and hours-old calves dragged away from their mothers, no charges have been filed against Willet Dairy in Cayuga County, NY by the district attorney's office.
The same footage of employees beating and kicking animals and digging their fingers into eye sockets that convinced Denver cheese maker Leprino Foods Co. to drop Willet as a milk supplier and Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal to introduce anti tail-docking legislation -- is "not necessarily illegal" says a statement from the Cayuga County District Attorney on YNN News 10.
Leprino clients include Domino's, Papa John's and Pizza Hut.
Tail docking is illegal in California, New Jersey, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other European countries.
The decision to bring criminal charges says the District Attorney's office hinges on an investigation by a local animal group which is authorized to make animal cruelty arrests -- the Finger Lakes Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Central New York -- but in December, the group had neither received or viewed evidence from Mercy For Animals (MFA), Nightline's source for the video, according to email correspondence.
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