MOORPARK : Horses Nearly Died, Prosecutor Tells Jury

A Moorpark man nearly starved to death his two horses in their Newbury Park pasture and should be convicted of felony and misdemeanor animal cruelty, a Ventura County prosecutor told a jury as the defendant’s trial got under way Thursday.

“(The horses) were very skinny. They were emaciated,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Simon said. “There was very little muscle, and their body fat was gone.”

Michael Stephen Ney, 48, has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of animal cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of not providing the horses with food or water. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michael J. Neary, declined to give an opening statement in court Thursday.

If convicted of the felonies, Ney could receive 42 months in prison and a $40,000 fine. Convictions on the misdemeanors could bring an additional year in jail and another $2,000 in fines.

Simon told the jury that workers from the Ventura County Humane Society, acting on a tip, found the nearly starved horses at the Newbury Lane pasture on Oct. 18. The horses were each about 350 pounds underweight, depressed and barely able to wag their tails, he said.

The horses were seized Oct. 21 by the Humane Society and are being held at its Ojai shelter. Since authorities seized the horses, their conditions have improved, he said. One, a thoroughbred, has picked up about 400 pounds. The other, a Hanoverian, has gained about 310 pounds.

Simon said testimony would show that the horses would soon have died of starvation had they not been rescued.

The prosecution’s first witness, Shawna Boatman, one of the Humane Society’s field officers who helped seize the horses, testified that the health of a horse can be measured on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being emaciated and 9 being overweight. “These were a 1,” she said.