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Trial begins Tuesday in dog case
Published 12:00 p.m., March 16, 2009
A jury trial is set to begin Tuesday for a New York Mills woman accused of animal abuse last spring.
Kathy Jo Bauck, 52, is charged with three counts of cruelty to animals and three counts of torture. The charges stem from accusations by a former employee of Bauck’s business, Pick of the Litter Kennels in New York Mills.
Five other counts of cruelty, torture and practicing veterinary medicine without a license were dismissed by an Otter Tail County District Court judge in late January.
On Friday the same judge dismissed several motions by Bauck’s attorney that may have delayed the trial. In one motion, Zenas Baer asked the court to suppress testimony from one of the prosecution’s expert witnesses, a veterinarian whose report ended up on the Web site of the Companion Animal Protection Society (CAPS). Bauck’s accuser, Jason Smith, has connections to CAPS, which investigates alleged puppy mills.
Assistant Otter Tail County Attorney Heather Brandborg said the state did not know the report would be published online when it was sent to CAPS’ president. It is no longer available online and would not be prejudicial if no jurors saw it, she said.
Baer also asked for further investigation into Jason Smith, who has gone by several aliases. Smith appears to have worked at a hog farm in Ohio under an alias and with a different social security number, Baer said, making it difficult for the defense to determine who he is.
Baer called Smith a “freelance sudo law enforcement agent” whose evidence would not be admissible if he was part of an actual law enforcement agency.
Judge Waldemar Senyk dismissed Baer’s motions and quashed Baer’s subpoena of Brandborg as a witness. Testimony regarding Brandborg’s work on earlier charges against Bauck can be obtained from other witnesses, Senyk said.
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