Donald Genthner, the 51-year-old Rockland man accused of causing the deaths of seven horses on a Waldoboro farm last fall, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on May 24 in Lincoln County Superior Court.
Genthner was arrested in January and is alleged to have caused the death of seven horses and abused four other horses under his care on a Waldoboro farm last fall.
In total, there were 15 horses under Genthner’s care. Along with the bodies of the seven horses, one horse was found in severe pain from malnutrition and an untreated leg problem, Waldoboro Police Chief Bill Labombarde said at the time of Genthner’s arrest. At that time, eight horses, including the horse with the leg problem, were alive and all were recovering nicely once they were transferred to new caretakers.
The dead horses were severely malnourished, according to necropsies conducted on the bodies at Purdue University in Indiana. The necropsy tested the horses’ bone marrow for fat content. A healthy horse should have between 66 and 93 percent fat. One horse tested had three percent fat, the other had 5.4 percent.
If Genthner is convicted, aggravated animal cruelty, a Class C felony, carries a maximum of five years in prison and fines up to $10,000.
At Genthner’s arraignment, he and his attorney, Bob Rubin, requested that the case be dismissed because the prosecution did not match each abuse charge with a specific horse.
Genthner is charged with 11 counts of animal cruelty, four felony charges and seven misdemeanors. The prosecution lists 11 horses that were allegedly abused, but does not specify which horses represent felony abuse and which represent misdemeanor abuse, Rubin said.
Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wright responded by saying that the prosecution was willing to provide a list, but didn’t have to because horses fall under property law.
“We all love animals and think of our pets as members of the family, but under the law, they are still property,” Wright said.
Justice Andrew Horton denied the request for dismissal, but did order the prosecution to provide a list assigning each charge to a specific horse.
Following Genthner’s indictment April 21, Rubin said that a more thorough investigation would have shown that the horses had herpes, which was rampant in Maine at the time, Rubin said. The disease was the cause of the horses’ poor condition, not neglect or abuse, Rubin said.
“Mr. Genthner was consulting with a vet at the time, and the vet said that it was probably herpes,” Rubin said.
Betsy Piper owns the farm on Chapel Road where the horses were being kept. She was not involved in the abuse and was “nothing but helpful” in the investigation, Labombarde said. “She went above and beyond to make sure these animals were cared for after they were found,” he said.
At the time of Genthner’s arrest, Piper said that Genthner told her that the horses had herpes and that he had been consulting with a vet. However, as Piper’s concern for the welfare of the horses grew, Genthner had “a plethora of excuses as to why the vet couldn’t come,” she said.
Piper said that even if the horses had herpes, the conditions in which they were living were grossly unsuitable. “If there was six inches of poop, there was a foot,” she said. “They were standing in it, both inside and outside the barn.”
Following Genthner’s arraignment, Piper pointed out that if the horses had herpes, it likely would have spread through all the horses on the farm. The horses that survived were placed into foster care, and do not have herpes, the current owners said at the time of Genthner’s arrest.
