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Cricket Hollow Zoo owners face fines or jail after Iowa Supreme Court rejects contempt appeal

on Fri, 04/08/2022 - 20:57   by Clark Kauffman

by Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch
April 7, 2022

A tangled and contentious five-year legal odyssey involving the owners of eastern Iowa’s shuttered Cricket Hollow Zoo may finally be near an end.

The Iowa Supreme Court this week rejected zoo owners Pamela and Thomas Sellner’s efforts to set aside a judge’s finding that they were in contempt for having refused a court order to surrender the animals at their roadside attraction in Manchester.

The contempt ruling calls for the Sellners to pay $70,000 in fines. If payments are not made toward the fine, the Sellners will have to serve a one-day jail sentence for each animal that was not recovered from their zoo, for a total of 140 days.

Court records indicate no payments have been made on the fine.

Sen. Roby Smith barked up the wrong tree defending Davenport dog kennel owner

on Tue, 10/26/2021 - 02:56   by news

by Kathie Obradovich, Iowa Capital Dispatch
October 25, 2021

State Sen. Roby Smith’s conduct in bullying Iowa Department of Agriculture staff on behalf of a constituent and raising the possibility of gun violence was beyond disturbing.

If you missed Clark Kauffman’s story in Iowa Capital Dispatch, you can read it here.

The constituent, Davenport kennel owner Robert Burns, couldn’t have been more pleased that penalties against his business for animal-welfare violations were reduced after Smith joined him in a two-hour phone call with top agency staff. And for good reason.

Hearing under way to determine if Cricket Hollow owners should be held in contempt of judge's order

on Thu, 01/07/2021 - 03:41   by news

Owners of the troubled – and now closed – Cricket Hollow Zoo are again in court.

This time the owners of the roadside zoo near Manchester are facing charges they disobeyed the district court's December 2019 order that required them to turn over hundreds of animals for relocation by animal rescue personnel.

The trial of Pamela and Thomas Sellner on contempt charges began Wednesday (1/6/21) and is expected to conclude Tuesday in Iowa District Court in Delaware County. The case was filed a year ago, Jan. 8, 2020.

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