DA appeals animal cruelty investigation ruling. What happens next in Summit Township case
The Erie County District Attorney's Office is challenging a judge's ruling that suppressed evidence collected from a Summit Township property in a large-scale investigation into suspected animal cruelty and neglect in 2022.
First Assistant District Attorney Jessica Reger, who is prosecuting the case against Gregory S. Havican, filed the appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court in March. The District Attorney's Office on Wednesday filed the latest procedural document to advance the appeal.
The appeal will delay Havican's trial, which has been rescheduled several times and is currently scheduled for early May. Havican is free on unsecured bond.
Reger is arguing that Erie County Judge Daniel Brabender erred in ruling on Feb. 13 that the search warrants served on Edinboro Road property where Havican kept a variety of animals lacked sufficient probable cause. Havican's lawyer had challenged the sufficiency of the warrants.
Reger is also arguing the court erred as a matter of law and abused its discretion by suppressing the evidence because Havican had given authorities consent to search the property and Havican never challenged that consent.
Havican, 50, is facing 134 charges, including 62 felony counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, on allegations he failed to properly care for numerous animals, including dogs, puppies and chickens.
The investigation that led to the charges was launched in fall 2022 after authorities said a former employee of Havican's shot video of the conditions on the property, and the video was passed along to the Pennsylvania State Police.
Troopers said Havican gave them consent to search the property on Oct. 8, 2022. State police later served three search warrants on the property in the 7600 block of Edinboro Road and seized numerous animals, which were turned over to the A.N.N.A. Shelter for care.
Defense challenges sufficiency of search warrants
State police initially charged Havican with 163 counts related to the care of animals that included pigs, pigeons and ducks as well as the dogs, puppies and chickens. Havican was held for court on the 134 charges he now faces following a lengthy preliminary hearing held over two days in early 2023.
Among the arguments raised at the hearing by Havican's lawyer, Charbel Latouf, was that the Edinboro Road property was a working farm and is thereby exempt under Pennsylvania law from animal cruelty laws and related offenses. Latouf also raised the issue of whether animals that were determined to be in poor condition or that had later died may have been affected by their move to other farms following their seizure from the Edinboro Road property.
Latouf in September challenged in pretrial motions the legality of the three search warrants obtained by state police in the investigation. He argued, among other things, that the first search warrant served by state police on Oct. 8, 2022, lacked probable cause and contained numerous misrepresentations of fact and incomplete information.
Latouf challenged a statement that the animals were living in "deplorable" conditions, which he said was not supported or corroborated by other facts; and said the former employee's statement about puppies starting to eat deceased puppies was not supported by video footage or other evidence. He additionally argued a puppy that was found on a burn pile was not evidence of criminal conduct, as animals on a farm can lawfully be discarded by burning under state Department of Agriculture rules.
Brabender, in his ruling upholding Havican's challenges to the search warrants, said the former employee's statements and a puppy found on a burn pit did not indicate criminal activity. He also wrote the statement about puppies starting to eat deceased puppies lacked specific facts and context about how and when such an event occurred and whether Havican was aware of it.
Brabender also faulted the use of "deplorable" in the search warrants, writing that the definitions of the word do not describe with sufficiency the requisite facts necessary to establish that probable cause exists.
Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNhahn.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: DA appeals tossing of evidence in Summit Township animal cruelty case
