Kitten drownings charged

The head of Adelanto’s animal control office has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty after investigators said he systematically drowned dozens of kittens over four months last year.

Kevin Murphy, 36, was charged Monday with six counts of killing, maiming and abusing animals and faces up to six years in prison if he is convicted.

“The charges allege that he killed in the neighborhood of 50 kittens while working as head of animal control in Adelanto,” said James Hill, San Bernardino County supervising deputy district attorney.

Hill said the kittens were drowned between July and October 2007 but would not release further details of the investigation. The mayor and City Council members did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.

Each of the misdemeanor charges carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail, a $20,000 fine or both.

Murphy, who was not arrested, will be arraigned May 19. He and another unidentified city employee were placed on paid administrative leave last week, City Manager Jim Hart said. Murphy is the only one being charged at this time.

The High Desert city has taken a cautious approach to the allegations, hiring an outside public relations firm and issuing press releases but not speaking to the media.

Hart released a statement Tuesday saying that Murphy should be treated as innocent until proved otherwise.

“The city has taken immediate steps to review proper procedure with current staff and will undertake retraining if it is determined to be needed,” he said. “It is important to reiterate that the city does not condone violence against animals in any shape or form. If it is determined that there is truth to the accusations, we will deal with it strictly and decisively.”

Charges were filed after the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department began investigating allegations that some animal control employees were putting kittens in cages and drowning them.

Investigators filed the case with the district attorney’s office last week.

Murphy could not be reached for comment. In 2004, he was given the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Medal for Lifesaving after pulling a woman from a burning apartment complex.

Some of those who worked with him said they were stunned by the allegations.

“We were not friends, but we were colleagues,” said Kathy Williamson, manager of the Victor Valley Animal Protective League in Apple Valley. “I was really surprised when I heard that someone supposedly trying to do the right thing by rescuing animals is then charged with killing them. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Williamson said she has an agreement with Adelanto Animal Control to take in whatever animals its workers bring her. The city pays a fee for each animal her shelter takes in. The fee for a dead animal is less than for a live one.

Adelanto pays the shelter $23 to take a live cat and $10 to take -- and then dispose of -- a dead one.Williamson said Adelanto Animal Control officers brought her 47 dead cats and dogs in 2005. In 2006, they brought 65. Last year, the total was 119.

“For every animal they don’t bring me alive, they save money,” she said. “But it’s not [Murphy’s] money, it’s the city’s money.”

When it has to euthanize animals, the shelter uses sodium pentobarbital which kills in seconds, Williamson said. The shelter does this only when it determines that an animal will probably not be adopted.

“Years ago, before spaying and neutering, you’d hear stories of grandma out on the farm putting kittens in a gunnysack and throwing them in the river -- but not anymore,” she said. “There are guidelines you must follow.”

This was hardly Adelanto’s first brush with controversy. In April, Mayor Jim Nehmens and his wife, Kelly, were arrested and charged with stealing $20,000 from a local Little League fireworks sale. In June, Cuban-born Zoila Meyer had to resign from the City Council because she wasn’t a U.S. citizen. She later pleaded no contest to voting fraud.

In 1997, former Adelanto Police Chief Philip Genaway received a four-year sentence for embezzling $10,000 from the department’s canine unit.

Two local police officers went to jail the same year for beating a prisoner and making him lick his blood from the station floor.

And voters once elected Tom Thornburg as mayor despite the fact that he served a year in prison in connection with a plot to smuggle marijuana in 1973.

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david.kelly@latimes.com