Two animal rights activists have been acquitted in the Smithfield Piglet case after jurors believed the pair did not steal the two piglets but ‘saved’ them from being sent to the slaughterhouse at one of the largest pork producers in the country.
Wayne Hsiung, co-founder of the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere and Paul Darwin Picklesimer conducted a three-month undercover operation and exposed the horrifying conditions at Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms located in Milford, Utah.
The two baby pigs they rescued, were nursed back to health and given names – Lily and Lizzy – but all the others were left behind at the pork production facility that raises over a million pigs for slaughter every year.
The pair were at one point facing up to 11 years in prison on one of the counts that was later dismissed.
Their trial ended on October 15. After eight hours of jury deliberation, they were found not guilty.
‘It’s an incredible win that I am still reeling from,’ said Hsuing.
He added, ‘Not just for transparency or accountability at Smithfield Farms, but the idea that animals are living things and not things to just be thrown away into a garbage can.’
‘Operation Deathstar’ took place in March 2017 by Wayne Hsiung, co-founder of the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere and Paul Darwin Picklesimer. The pair pictured are wearing flashlights as they rescue two piglets and uncover the horrifying conditions at Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms located in Milford, Utah
The dark, cramped conditions that the pigs live in (pictured here). During filming, Hsuing said the pigs were wailing loudly and some were smashing their heads against the metal stalls trying to break free from their nightmare that he called ‘unfathomable misery’
The animal advocate and attorney said some of the jurors had expressed that what they did was unlawful and there needed to be some type of consequence, but many concluded that the pair lacked the intent to steal but instead intended to document the conditions and rescue any of the animals they saw were in need.
He said the jurors also felt the piglets had no value to Smithfield. And, as a result, the jury concluded they could not be the objects of a theft.
‘They [the jurors] knew we were there because we were concerned about animal welfare,’ Hsiung said.
‘They knew we felt these animals needed medical care and that was enough for them to exonerate us for any criminal responsibility for burglary and theft.’
A mother pig surrounded by her piglets at the Smithfield Plant, one of the largest pork producers in the country
Hsuing showing the aisles of pigs caged and abused at Smithfield Plant
The crackdown on the pork processing plant came after their video titled ‘Operation Deathstar’ which they shared with The New York Times went viral and got into the hands of many animal rights activists showing the raid.
Smithfield claimed that the video appeared staged when it was not, according to Husing’s October 18 guest essay he wrote for The New York Times.
He said the authorities never recovered the stolen piglets, and the federal government declined to press charges.
But prosecutors in Utah pursued felony burglary and theft charges against the activists, who faced prison sentences if convicted.
In August, a multistate investigation was launched by F.B.I. agents. They raided animal sanctuaries in Utah and Colorado with search warrants for the two pigs.
At one of them, government veterinarians sliced off part of a piglet’s ear in their search for DNA evidence of the crime.
‘At the Colorado shelter, government veterinarians cut off part of Lizzie’s ear for DNA testing. Not long after, my four co-defendants and I were indicted in Utah,’ he wrote
‘All this, despite the fact that a representative from the company testified at our trial that no one at the farm even noticed that the piglets were missing until a video appeared online. The piglets were, according to one of the prosecution’s own witnesses, worth at most $42.20 each.’
Hsuiung said that three of his co-defendants accepted plea deals with no prison or jail time but said that he and Picklesimer wanted a jury.
He said he wanted a jury so the public would ‘wrestle with the moral implications of how living beings end up in grocery stores as packages of meat.’
The offices of the Smithfield Plant located in Milford, Utah
[embedded content]During their nighttime raid -that took place on March 2017 – the pair showed aisles and aisles of pigs in metal crates wailing desperate to get out and the barbaric treatment they endured.
‘Folks we are about to head into Circle 4 this is the heart of evil. You can already hear the screams of the mother pigs inside – cramped and suffering – and we are going to try and expose what is happening inside,’ Hsiung said on the video.
He details the disturbing details the Times essay.
‘Inside, we found and documented sick and underweight piglets. One of them could not walk properly or reach food because of an infected wound to her foot, according to a veterinarian who testified on our behalf.
‘The other piglet’s face was covered in lesions and blood, and she struggled to nurse from a mother, whose teats showed gruesome reproductive injuries, the veterinarian, who reviewed video of the piglets and spoke to caretakers, said in a report. Given their conditions, both piglets were likely to be killed and potentially tossed into a landfill outside of Circle Four Farms, in which millions of pounds of dead pigs and other waste are discarded every year,’ he wrote.
He added, ‘Nationally, an estimated 14 percent of piglets die before they’re weaned.
In the heartbreaking video Husing shares he says: ‘You can hear the clanging they are desparate to get out of these crates they are smashing there heads to the point they have swelling and cuts to their faces. ‘This mother pig actually broke the bar so they had tie the crate shut.
He showed how one of the mother pigs tried to break out and set herself free.
‘You see she broke open the bars so desperate to escape but there is no escape and even if she broke down the entire door she cannot squeeze through the space that is how small the space that they have to live in is,’ he said.
He continued: ‘Often times they bash their heads, bodies and noses against these steel bars so much that they are just defeated and fall to the ground collapse in fatigue and that is what is happening to this mother pig.’
‘She will be stuck here four years sometimes five or six years living in a crate this size forcibly impregnated over and over again and then finally killed when she can no longer produce anymore piglets as this farm that wants her to produce.
‘When she becomes unprofitable she will be killed. She will never stop outside her entire life.
Hsuing standing in an area were hundreds of mother pigs are being kept for as long as six years
Lizzy and Lily were nursed back to health after being rescued by two passionate animal advocates
Hsuing and Picklesmier pictured with a mother pig
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