Horse sanctuary operator is convicted of two felonies

A seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated for about two hours Thursday before finding the former head of a horse sanctuary guilty of animal cruelty.

Kathrin Darlene Bolton, 50, was found guilty of depriving a gray-colored Arabian horse mare named “Moon” of necessary food, drink, shelter or veterinary care to prevent suffering.

She was also found guilty of cruelty for depriving 37 other horses of necessary food.

The jury recommended she serve six months in the county jail on each of the two offenses, which could have carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison, one year in county jail, or a fine not exceeding $5,000.

The jury found her not guilty of four other counts of animal cruelty involving specific named horses and one count of embezzlement concerning a horse in her care that disappeared.

District Judge Emily Maxwell set formal sentencing for Nov. 3. Bolton was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Assistant District Attorney Jeff Mixon called two veterinarians who had examined the animals to the stand. Dr. Kyle Pratt of Broken Bow and Dr. Hardy Stewardson of Texas said some animals were emaciated but not diseased.

“They had not been given adequate food,” said Pratt.

Stewardson examined more of the animals and said that the middle-aged animals were in the best shape, but the young horses and the old horses were in the worst shape.

He explained to jurors that when horses are fed together, unless each one is fed in a separate trough and all horses are fed at once, the stronger horses will get most of the food at the expense of the young and old horses.

He examined the Arabian horse named Moon, which had to be dragged from a trailer to be examined because the horse could not get up. He kept and fed it for about 35 days, and the horse recovered.

The state’s longest witness was Patrick Blake, an investigator with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry.

Blake said he first went to Bolton’s sanctuary, which consisted of a 600-acre tract west of Broken Bow and a 125-acre tract east of Broken Bow, in December 2022. He went there at the request of horse owners who said their registered Morgan-bred horses could not be located.

On that first visit, he contacted Bolton, who went with him on the 600-acre tract. He saw some hay on the ground in a pen that day, plus a few bales in the back of a truck.

He said Bolton explained that she was basically operating a hospice for horses, where most people brought their older animals to be cared for until they died. Blake saw carcasses of some dead horses on the property, and he explained that according to state regulations, the animals needed to be buried.

Blake said Bolton explained to him that when the Nov. 4 tornado had hit the month before, it had done some damage and caused the horses to scatter. Some of the horses disappeared after that.

She explained that the horses grazed on pasture, but other than that, were not fed on a daily basis. Blake testified that he saw no growing grass on the 600 acres and that many of the horses appeared to be in bad shape.

He shot many photos of what he saw.

He came back a few more times, brought a state veterinarian with him on one occasion, and the state then quarantined the property.

Later, a neighbor found two of the missing Morgan horses, but one named “Ike” was never found.

Listening to the testimony were the Morgans’ owners, Mike and Paula Vrana, who were paying the sanctuary since February 2022 to keep the animals during the winter and spring, and then to bring them to their place in Alaska when the weather warmed up in June.

But when the time came for their transport, Bolton did not bring their horses.

Those horse owners came to McCurtain County for the trial, as did Valerie Hatfield, from Missouri. She claimed three of her horses had been mistreated.

Defense attorney Jared Cannon called two witnesses. One was the daughter of Bolton, who had helped care for horses at the sanctuary. The other was vice president of the non-profit sanctuary board, a director of nursing at a large hospital in Massachusetts.

Hannah Ashford explained that she and her mother had lived in a rented house owned by a neighbor beside one of the properties, but he came over while her mother was in her underwear, so they decided to move from the house.

About a week later, she said, one of their horses was shot in the neck. Then a pet pig went missing, and they found its decapitated body.

Locks began to be cut on gates, and gates were left open so that “random people began driving onto the property, she said.

She said some loads of rescue horses arrived from Texas, 37 of them, which were in very poor condition. They had been purchased from “kill pens,” where mostly old horses are kept to be shipped to slaughterhouses (in Canada or Mexico).

They were put on a special feeding program to be brought back to health, and she said her mother, at times, had to pay for their feed herself because those who rescued them were not paying.

Ashford testified that the tornado tore the roof off a barn and caused the horses to go where they didn’t them to go. The ground was also soaked and muddy, causing trucks to get stuck. They had to fashion a sled of sorts for bringing hay to the animals.

She said feed was purchased about every other day.

After the tornado, she and her mother diligently searched for the missing Morgans as well as some of their own horses that had disappeared. They printed up and distributed flyers and used Facebook, contacted neighbors, etc. Cannon presented some of the flyers as evidence for jurors to see, along with some of the feed tickets.

Ashford claimed that after the state quarantined the horses, Blake came there acting very authoritative and said the horses had to be penned. She claimed that he showed up multiple times and penned horses, but sometimes forgot to provide them with water.

She said that by mixing all the horses in the pen, the young and old horses didn’t get adequate food, causing them to lose weight. Two of the young horses even got trampled by the big horses, she told jurors.

On cross-examination by Mixon, she said she didn’t know where her mother lived and later explained that it was because her mother was now living in a tent.

She said she was not blaming the neighbor for the shot horse and the dead pig, because she didn’t know who did it.

Mixon showed one set of pictures after another of healthy-looking horses in early 2022 and then starved-looking horses in early 2023.

She denied that they looked that way because of her mother’s actions.

She also denied that the horse named “Moon” was in good shape when she arrived.

The state’s second witness, Geraldine McQuoid, was articulate, faced jurors when she testified, and was highly knowledgeable about horses and the finances at the sanctuary.

She said sanctuaries are supported by not only horse owners but also those wanting to rescue horses from the slaughterhouses. She said over 110,000 horses a year, including a lot of healthy young horses, are taken to slaughterhouses outside the nation each year, and she even went to one of them to see how they were treated, which was horrible.

She described the horses being transported on trucks with no food or water, then on arrival being placed in pens, 500 to 600 at a time, also without food or water, forced into very narrow chutes, prodded to where they were hit with stun guns, which 70 percent of the time were not effective.

Chains would then come around their feet and suspend them in the air. While most were still alive, their throats were cut.

The sanctuaries help prevent this. The owners or rescues often arranged with feed stores to pay for their feed themselves, but some don’t pay, so the sanctuary has to care for those horses without income.

She said when the biggest loads ever of 37 horses arrived, they looked dire, and two had to be euthanized – one with only three legs and one with a tumor in its jaw.

They began a feeding program that included alfalfa, other forage, and clean, fresh water. Some gained weight and some didn’t because of bad teeth, digestive problems, and other reasons. Some were very elderly and had very poor teeth, she said.

McQuoid said she tried many times, in many ways, to contact Blake, but he didn’t respond. She did speak to his superior.

The horse “Moon,” she said, had IRH – idiopathic renal hemorrhage.

They found a surgeon and raised funds to care for another horse.

She also claimed the state made matters worse in how it handled the horses during the quarantine, causing one older horse to go down that had been bumped by the stronger horses.

It died, she said, and the death was “needless.”

On cross-examination, she said she is the nursing director over 300 nurses, but despite that, disagreed with Mixon’s contention that she didn’t know about day-to-day operations at the sanctuary.

She said she came to the county about every three weeks and examined the horses herself.

She said after the case became public, she received death threats.

She said people “told us we should be killed; we should be ground up.”

She resigned from the board about six months ago, she said, and the organization ceased to operate.