Farmers Rally For Indicted Bull Owner

Vermont Standard

By Katy Savage

Standard Staff

RUTLAND — Despite national attention and public outcry from Vermont farmers, Rutland State’s Attorney Rose Kennedy is standing by her decision to prosecute a Killington resident of involuntary manslaughter after his loose bull on Route 4 led to the death of a Connecticut man who crashed into the animal the night of July 31, 2015.

“This case intersects with the conversation of public safety and it’s a conversation worth having,” Kennedy said over the phone.

More than 50 filled a courtroom in Rutland on Monday afternoon most of them in support of Killington resident Craig Mosher, who is being charged for involuntary manslaughter for “failing to keep his Scottish Highlander bull properly contained and for not actively searching for said animal when he learned it was loose from its pasture,” a police affidavit said.

Those who couldn’t find a seat waited outside. Many of them were farmers scared about getting caught in the legal system.

Mosher’s neighbors, friends and farmers who have never met him prepared for a fight at Monday’s scheduled status conference. The conference was delayed until July 11 at 3 p.m. after Mosher’s attorney Paul Volk asked for an extension to review documents. Several of the attendees said they’d be back.

A criminal proceeding for loose livestock is rare. So rare it may be unprecedented. Concerned farmers from this state and others have united in support.

“Bringing it up to a criminal level has all the farmers shaking,” said Vermont Farm Bureau Administrator and Finance Director Chris O’Keefe in a phone interview.

The police affidavit was released to the public last Friday and said Mosher was made aware of the loose bull before the accident on July 31 when a milk truck driver pulled into Mosher’s driveway and woke him up by blowing the truck’s air horn. Mosher told police he looked for his 1,800-pound Scottish Highlander but then went back inside and fell asleep before he was able to locate it, the affidavit said.

The new information “puts a little wrinkle in (the case). Like, he went to look for it and he stopped looking,” said O’Keefe, who has supported Mosher.

The information from the police investigation changes little in the minds of farmers.

“How likely are you to find a bull in the middle of the night, wandering around?” O’Keefe said.

The Vermont Farm Bureau has stood behind Mosher, encouraging members to attend Monday’s status conference. O’Keefe has heard that one farmer won’t let his animals outside anymore, another won’t lease his land a third isn’t buying calves this year. They don’t want to risk jail time, he said.

According to the affidavit, state police were called to Mosher’s residence for his loose bulls five times in a two-month period. A bull was loose on July 30, the night before the accident and a bull was loose July 26, June 23 and June 20. A bull was also loose May 19, 2013.

Trooper Robert Rider wrote that a milk truck driver slammed on his brakes, leaving skid marks on the road, to avoid hitting the Scottish Highlander named Rob the night of July 31. The driver alerted Mosher and called state police just before 10 p.m. Almost 20 minutes later Jon Bellis, of Woodbridge, Connecticut, hit the bull, then went down a bank and crashed into a tree and died as state police were traveling to the “animal problem complaint” on Route 4, the affidavit said. Bellis’ wife, Kathryn Barry, survived the crash.

Mosher had looked for the bull near a spruce tree after the milk driver alerted him it was in the road, the affidavit said. Mosher didn’t see the animal and figured it was behind his shop. He went back inside and fell asleep, the affidavit said.

This is being called manslaughter because Mosher failed to make a “reasonable effort to locate the loose bull when he was advised it was out of its pasture,” the police document said.

The facts in the affidavit were “troubling,” to Jon Katz, a farmer in upstate New York who drove almost two hours to attend the status conference on Monday. “It made me take it much more seriously,” he said.

But if the affidavit is true, the indictment is still “extreme,” he said in a phone interview after the hearing.

It puts Vermont values in jeopardy and confronts an agricultural way of life where “animals escape and everybody in the community helps get them back,” Katz said.

Katz writes a blog about farming that 4 million see a year, he said. He was alerted about Mosher’s case from his readers and started writing about it.

If Mosher’s found guilty, it’s going to alter the way people live with their animals, in this state and others, Katz said. One farmer told Katz he’s going to euthanize his cows if they escape. Another isn’t going to let his cows graze anymore.

Sharon Stearns, a multigenerational farmer who grew up with cows and horses, predicted some farmers will get rid of their animals, some will leave the state and some won’t let their animals outside anymore if Mosher is found guilty.

“My concern is that animals are going to be held indoors and away from light, in inhumane conditions,” said Stearns on Monday, who has three horses in Brandon.

Cindy Mayer, the owner of four Morgan horses in Addison County, keeps her animals along Route 116.

“We maintain our fences like everyone does but there’s no saying they won’t get out,” she said at the courthouse.

Farmers compared the accident to hitting wildlife, like moose and deer.

“What happens if a deer gets in the road and causes an accident? Is the state of Vermont going to be culpable? What if your dog gets loose?” said William Tucker, who grew up on a farm in Ludlow. He read about Mosher’s case in the news and decided to attend the hearing. “This is a farming state still, there is livestock.”

When contacted by phone, Mosher seemed confident “everything will get cleared up here.”

“The support is overwhelming,” said Mosher. “It’s a way of life that we’re trying to preserve and protect here. It affects all of us.”

Mosher, 61, is the owner of Mosher Excavating. His two Scottish Highlander bulls, Rob and Big, were occasionally used as company mascots.

Jerry O’Neill, a lawyer who represents Kathryn Barry, said Mosher’s two bulls doesn’t make him a farmer.

“These are pets, these aren’t farm animals,” said O’Neill of the Burlington firm Gravel and Shea.

To O’Neill the problem is in Mosher’s fencing. The accident could have been prevented if the animals were properly contained, he said.

“He made the choice not to restrain his animals and that is, from our perspective, what the case is about,” he said on Monday.

Rep. Job Tate (R-Mendon) has received more emails about Mosher’s case than any other issue facing Vermont. People have written to him from other states and other countries.

They’ve told him animals get loose and that’s part of living in an agricultural state.

“I’m kind of dismayed with the severity of the charge,” said Tate. “This is obviously a tragedy on the highest scale but this is Vermont and this is an agricultural state.”

Tate expressed his constituents’ concerns to State’s Attorney Kennedy.

“It’s going to take a lot of convincing to make me think he was being woefully negligent,” said Tate, who has spoken to Mosher.

Kennedy said her office hasn’t felt pressure one way or another.

“It’s obviously a case that has gotten a lot of attention,” Kennedy said. “This case asks the question, ‘What is the animal owner’s responsibility?’” She said she’d save her arguments for the courtroom.