Maryland man sentenced in cruelty case, horse has new home
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A Washington County man was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail after being found guilty for his third case in the past six years of animal cruelty involving at least one horse.
Joseph Alexander Bowers Jr., 49, of the Beaver Creek area, was found guilty in Washington County District Court on three counts of animal cruelty including failing to provide a horse with necessary veterinary care while the animal was in his charge, depriving the horse of necessary sustenance and inflicting unnecessary suffering or pain on the horse.
The case involves an Appaloosa mare named Iris that partially delivered a stillborn foal. According to court records and testimony in Tuesday’s trial, Bowers told a field service officer for the Humane Society of Washington County that he used ratchet straps for 2 to 2 1/2 hours to pull the dead foal from the mare on May 18, 2021. The horse was not able to stand on its own for about two days and did not receive veterinary care until the humane society got a tip about the horse on May 25 and seized it that night.
Retired Judge M. Kenneth Long said the horse was in “great distress” for a week until it was seized and even after as it had to be sedated and receive pain medication and treatment. It was “abject failure” on Bowers’ part and became a willful, intentional act, Long said of the lack of attention to the horse’s needs.
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Long sentenced Bowers to 180 days — six months — in the Washington County Detention Center. Long suspended a third 90-day sentence on the third count as well as $3,000 in fines.
After serving his sentence, Bowers would be on three years of supervised probation. Probation conditions include not owning, possessing or residing with an animal, Long said. Bowers also was ordered to report to the humane society all locations of any other horses he has within five days of his sentencing and to relinquish those horses to the humane society.
Crystal Mowery, the humane society’s field service director, said if anyone knows the location of any horses owned by Bowers, they can call the humane society’s field service department at 301-733-2060, ext. 203.
Bowers filed a notice of appeal to the Washington County Circuit Court on Tuesday, according to his online court docket.
Long set a $2,500 appeal bond for Bowers, but the probation conditions stand while he appeals. A Detention center spokesperson confirmed late Wednesday morning that Bowers had posted the bond and was released.
The judge also ordered Bowers to submit to an evaluation to the extent he has any mental health issues and to complete any treatment his probation supervisor recommends.
Tipster reports neglect, adopts horse
The case came to the humane society’s attention on May 25, 2021, after Karen Martin visited a farm near the Pennsylvania state line with a friend to assess a horse her friend was considering buying, Martin testified Tuesday. They went through a separate paddock and Martin said she noticed an Appaloosa mare that looked like she had recently given birth and was swaying while standing.
Martin testified the horse appeared to have scalding from urine, that she could “smell infection from several feet away,” that the horse was “very thin,” and there were “things protruding” from the horse’s back end that were not normal.
She asked the man in charge of the farm what the horse’s story was and was told the man’s buddy, Joe, owned the horse. Martin testified she offered to Bowers, through that farm’s owner, to buy the mare or to have her veterinarian provide care to the horse and she would cover the expense. But Martin said her offers were turned down. Bowers was not at the farm at the time.
Martin said she left and called the farm owner again. With no luck, she called her veterinarian, got a number for Mowery and reported the situation with the horse.
Several months later, after the horse received medical care through the humane society, Martin adopted Iris.
“She is now happy on a private farm” in the Clear Spring area with Martin’s four other horses, a donkey, and a pony with whom Iris has become best friends, Martin said after Bowers’ sentencing.
The rescued horse has put on weight so she’s “fat and happy,” Martin said. Iris receives ” a lot of love and care,” including daily care to keep her bottom clean and treat the scalding. Iris also gets weekly visits from a young lady involved with the Special Olympics who brushes her, Martin said.
Martin said she is a certified clinical research nurse who served on bioethics committees and helped set such committees up.
Talking via phone Tuesday night about why she reported Iris’ condition to the humane society, Martin said she’s spent her whole career “preaching to do the right thing when people aren’t looking.”
“I hope more people step up and do the right thing,” Martin said.
Previous history of animal cruelty to horses
In 2016, Bowers was tried and found guilty in District Court on 20 counts of animal cruelty involving seven horses in two incidents in January and April that year, according to Herald-Mail archives.
Those two incidents were merged into one case, which Bowers appealed to circuit court. Bowers entered Alford pleas in July 2017 to more than 20 counts of animal cruelty in the 2016 incidents. An Alford plea is not an admission of guilt, but a defendant acknowledges the prosecution has sufficient evidence to gain a conviction.
In the 2017 appeal, Bowers received 90-day suspended sentences on each count and was put on three years of unsupervised probation and was required to adhere to conditions for the care and treatment of three horses returned to him.
Given Bowers’ previous conviction and that he only received a suspended sentence in the earlier case, Assistant State’s Attorney Danielle Lackovic asked Long on Tuesday to sentence Bowers to the maximum 90 days for each count in the most recent case.
Long found Bowers guilty on all six counts of animal cruelty. For the purposes of sentencing, he merged the six counts into three.
Horse moved to different farm after stillbirth
Before finding Bowers guilty, Long reviewed highlights of the case, including that what “drew everyone’s attention” was the strong smell of a horse about 20 feet away in “obvious distress.”
Long also pointed out the stillborn foal had apparently been disposed of because it was not anywhere to be found.
Iris was moved from Bowers’ farm on Herman Myers Road where the stillbirth occurred to the Castle Hill Road farm, with Bowers commenting to a humane society official that he had “nosy neighbors” and didn’t want any trouble with Mowery, according to court records and testimony by field service officer Rodney Burgan.
Other testimony Long noted was that Iris was found in a small paddock with weeds and little grass and no evident food or water. He said her body score condition, per veterinarian Jennifer Little, was a three when the average horse is a six or seven.
On the scale, one is emaciated and nine is so heavy a horse could have trouble walking, Little had testified.
The horse had skin problems and scabs were seen all over the horse from pictures presented by the prosecution, Long said.
He also noted multiple tears in the horse’s rear that led to infection and maggots.
Little testified the foal most likely caused the upper tears, but she believed the lower injuries and ensuing infection were from attempts to remove the dead foal from the mare.
Ratchet straps “should not be used for any species and definitely not with horses,” Little testified.
Bowers did not testify, but provided a statement during sentencing.
“I did everything in my power and I still do today to take care of these horses,” Bowers said Tuesday. He said his horses didn’t go one day without food or water, that they were tended to day and night, and that he wouldn’t treat one horse different than another.
Assistant Public Defender Daniel Tait, in his closing argument, noted that Little testified a foal usually needed to be delivered within 45 minutes to survive and with no one else around Bowers unfortunately used ratchet straps. Bowers had to choose whether to save the mother or risk losing both the mother and foal, Tait said.
Referring to some of Little’s testimony, Tait said that if a person isn’t the client of a veterinarian, that veterinarian is not required to provide emergency care.
Lackovic, in her closing, said there were two attempts to get a vet.
The horse needed necessary veterinary care, perhaps before May 18, but certainly on May 18 and even more as the days went by, Long said.