Embattled Kennel Owner’s Long Fight : Ruby Mae Brown’s Trouble With the Law Dates Back Years

There is more to Ruby Mae Brown than meets the eye.

She claims to be an innocent victim of a system that she has no control over, a system she says has persecuted her for nearly a decade for her sloppy housekeeping habits at Kelly’s Pet Hotel on Morena Boulevard.

In court, she is docile and weeps, begging the judge to have mercy.

At other times, she appears to be in a fury. When faced with authorities who want to inspect her kennel, she turns to snarling anger, uttering death threats and vowing revenge.

At still other times she seems to be a cunning performer who knows how to play to her audience. Whether being inspected or arrested, she rarely misses an opportunity to shout to the cameras that she’s being harassed by authorities.

In Municipal Court Friday, Brown told the judge that her business had been hurt by officials she said caused pictures of her unkempt kennel to appear in the newspapers and on television. But officials of the state Humane Society and the County Department of Animal Control say Brown is often the one who calls the media when her kennel is inspected.

Brown, 61, has been battling the city, county and state for nine years. Over the years, inspections of her boarding facility have found kennels filled with feces and animals suffering from neglect. On several occasions, dead dogs were discovered in the kennel--once the decomposing body of a poodle. Nevertheless, she has continued to operate as a dog breeder and licensed kennel owner.

Brown is scheduled for trial Tuesday on 283 criminal counts, including animal cruelty, failure to keep a sanitary kennel and failure to keep the rabies certificates of dogs up to date.

She claims the state Humane Society, the county Department of Animal Control and the city attorney’s office are conspiring to put her out of business.

Brown was jailed twice within the last week because she failed to surrender to authorities an AR-15 rifle she recently bought. Municipal Judge E. Mac Amos had ordered her to surrender the gun after Brown’s threats, recorded by television cameras, on the lives of animal control officers.

Brown told the judge she did not intend to hurt anyone, claiming: “If when I went and got that gun, if I got it to kill people, I would not have got it in my name. A gun is the easiest thing in the world to get.”

Brown’s attorney, Fred Corbin, said her refusal came in part from her past experiences with police, who Brown said have confiscated guns from her home on a variety of occasions and never returned them.

On Wednesday, Brown was released from jail for 24 hours on the condition that she surrender the gun to police. But instead she showed up in court Thursday morning with a receipt, claiming she had sold the gun.

When the judge refused to hear her out, she left the courthouse, only to be arrested by police for failing to turn in the gun. She was brought back to the courtroom in handcuffs.

Sobbing, she told the judge she had sold the gun to a woman named Tammy Sutton who she had met on the street the night before. Police, however, said the address Brown gave for Sutton was phony. The next day animal control officers learned from the Sheriff’s Department that Sutton is Brown’s daughter.

Corbin was called in to negotiate, and later said that Brown told him Sutton did not have the gun but knew who did.

Friday afternoon, with the judge’s approval, Corbin went to Brown’s kennel to pick up the rifle, but he would not name the person who handed it to him. Police verified that it was the gun Brown had recently purchased, and she was released that night from the Las Colinas Jail for women.

Brown refused to be interviewed Sunday, saying that she was unhappy with previous media coverage. “I talk and tell people what’s happening and they listen to me like they don’t even hear me,” she said. “I have learned the hard way.”

Brown said she intends to make flyers and pass them out in front of stores to tell her side of the story.

The bizarre happenings of the last week were only a sideshow to the tangled events in Brown’s past.

Despite her seemingly bewildered demeanor in court, Brown is no stranger to legal wrangles. She has repeatedly been inspected, warned, cited, fined and convicted for conditions at her kennel. In 1985 her license was suspended for six months.

She has served two jail terms in connection with her business--one of 30 days on an animal cruelty conviction, and another sentence for threatening the life of a county animal control official.

Yet each time she has managed to stay in business.

A check of Superior Court records shows dozens of lawsuits filed both by and against Ruby Mae Brown. She filed suit against the city manager’s office in May for allegedly turning off the water to her kennel on three occasions. The suit was dismissed in June. She also filed a $10-million suit in federal court against the Humane Society last year, accusing it of violating her civil rights.

Brown has had criminal cases brought against her in San Diego County for offenses ranging from animal abuse to child endangerment to petty theft. Brown has faced criminal charges in Superior Court at least nine time in 21 years. But there are no felony convictions on her record. A 1985 felony conviction for shoplifting at the Price Club on Morena Boulevard was later reduced to a misdemeanor.

Used Many Aliases

In 1970, a court found Brown mentally ill and a danger to herself and others. She was referred for a two-week commitment to a mental hospital, but the records do not indicate if Brown ever entered the hospital. The city attorney’s office, which is currently prosecuting Brown for 283 criminal charges of animal abuse and neglect, was unaware that Brown had ever been declared mentally ill by a court.

Further, the record may not give an accurate picture of Brown’s involvement with the law. According to police records, she has, over the years, combined the first names of Ruby, Mae and Frances with the last names of Brown, Crenshaw, Goldberg and Reid to form at least 10 aliases.

Brown is currently embroiled in litigation with the county, which is trying to revoke her kennel license, as a result of her 1984 conviction on 20 counts of animal cruelty and neglect. She was ordered to give up the license that year, but that action was put on hold when the conviction was appealed.

Former Deputy County Counsel Grace Goodall, who is now in private practice, bridled when asked how Brown has managed to stay in business so long.

“We’ve given her every benefit of the doubt,” said Goodall, who handled Brown’s case for four years. “We only tried to be fair to her, but unfortunately she’s gotten out on loopholes and gotten out on people’s sympathy.”

Goodall said the kennel was not shut down during the appeal process because the county feared that if they closed it and the conviction was overturned, the county would have been responsible for wrongfully taking away Brown’s livelihood.

The conviction was affirmed in August, 1988, but by then Brown had told the county she was in the process of selling the kennel. But the sale fell through.

Brown’s license did not come up for renewal again until November, 1988, and at that time the county again moved for revocation.

Brown’s attorney has argued that the county cannot revoke the license on the basis of something that happened five years ago. “They could very well have taken steps to revoke her license back when she was convicted,” Corbin said. “But they didn’t do it when they could have, and it doesn’t seem fair to me to use the 1984 convictions to not renew her license in 1988. There’s been no other convictions since.”

Decision Due by Feb. 21 Goodall responded: “That’s like saying you’re wrong for trying to be fair to someone and let the law run its course.” Goodall said that whether they could have revoked her license at the time depended on the interpretation of the law--and the county’s interpretation of that law has since changed as a result of this case. “Now, I don’t think they’d let her keep operating on appeal.”

The last licensing hearing was held Jan. 26. Outside the hearing room, Brown said in front of television cameras: “If they take my license, I will kill.”

A decision on the license revocation will be made on or before Feb. 21 by hearing officer Stephen Temko.

Brown’s criminal trial begins Tuesday. She will be acting as her own attorney.

Deputy City Atty. Fritz Ortlieb said he can’t discuss the case in detail--but speculated as to the case’s conclusion. “I might ask for a psychiatric review when it’s over, but that all depends on what happens in the trial.”

Goodall said that if Brown’s mental condition was evaluated, she would be found competent under county mental health standards because she is consistently able to provide for her own food, clothing and shelter.

Others are doubtful about Brown’s mental condition, particularly as it might apply to her carrying out threats. Humane Society investigator Robert Runyon and Lt. James P. Baker both recently filed affidavits with the court declaring that they believe her to be dangerous.

In his affidavit, Runyon said that Brown once told him: “I am going to go get a gun and shoot you.”

Baker said that Brown made several threats on his life in 1985, challenged him to a gunfight and stated that she would see him dead. As a result of those threats, police raided her home and seized seven guns, including an assault rifle, he said.

“I firmly believe Mrs. Brown intended to carry out her threats,” Baker said in the affidavit.

Because of Brown’s threats, the Humane Society has taken precautions, including locking gates and keeping an armed officer on duty around the clock.

Baker said he believed Brown would obtain another weapon even if her assault rifle were taken away. “She is a very determined person and firmly believes that her troubles are caused by me and my officers instead of her own doing,” he said.

Corbin, however, believes Brown’s threats are hollow. “She kept a weapon there more for protection than anything else,” he said. “She has never had a weapon in her hand any time the police or animal control came . . . she has never had a weapons charge in court.”

“Just like any other citizen, she’s entitled to have a weapon in her possession,” he said. Asked whether he thought she would actually shoot anyone, Corbin said: “I don’t think she would do it, but you never know about people. Everybody’s got a breaking point.”

“She’s really upset about the way she feels she’s being treated, that she’s being selectively prosecuted,” Corbin said.

Corbin said he believes Brown truly loves her animals, and said numerous customers have called him and offered to help clean up the kennel. “I think she loves her animals and would take care of them, but because . . . of going to court so many times her whole life has been disrupted to the point where I don’t think she can handle it. It’s just too much for her.”

Corbin also said Brown has lost a lot of business because of the publicity, and cannot afford to hire full-time help. “She also gets threats and everything else from these (animal rights activists) getting aroused about it.”

Though he is not handling her upcoming trial, Corbin said he has told Brown she is fighting a losing battle. “I told her: ‘You just can’t physically handle it and it’s not worth your life. You’re going to lose the war.’ ”