this story happened yesterday and its in the town i gre up in, whgere my parents tsill ive. my bf used to live right on thi sblock 6 years ago... the irony is this block backs right up against TOWN HALL!!!!! so the backyards and teh town hall parking lot touch!!!!
GREENBURGH, NY - A father and son charged with animal cruelty while planning a Santeria religious ritual may face more charges after a state investigation, officials said yesterday.
Officials said the two could be charged by the New York and New Jersey Departments of Agriculture for unlawfully transporting more than 100 animals from a New Jersey farm without proper documents.
Police said Luis Perez-Hernandez and his son housed the animals - including goats, rams, chickens, pigeons and doves - at his home on Indian Trail for an animal sacrifice as part of an Afro-Caribbean religious ritual.
Perez-Hernandez, 64, and his son, Louis Hernandez, were charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty because two of the animals, a goat and a pigeon, died from apparent malnutrition, police said. The sacrifice itself is not illegal, and the two were arrested and the animals returned to New Jersey before any ritual took place.
Police received a tip about the animals from a neighbor Aug. 15. Authorities found a pen containing about 30 goats and sheep; a half-dozen crates full of chickens, pigeons and doves; four ducks, eight quail and four turtles.
The Westchester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was also called.
Ken Ross, chief of the SPCA's law enforcement unit, said some birds were kept in overcrowded conditions without any water.
"Provide them with the basics, even if you are going to sacrifice them, is the proper way to do it," Ross said at a news conference.
Police Chief John Kapica said the biggest issue was not the religious purposes but how the animals were being treated.
The two were charged under the state Agriculture and Markets Law, accused of failing to provide sustenance for the dead goat and pigeon.
The father was also charged with violating a town law banning farm animals in residential neighborhoods.
The Santeria practice of animal sacrifice is not illegal and, in a 1993 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that animal-cruelty laws targeted at the religion were unconstitutional.
Yonkers resident Rebecca Moro, a Santeria practitioner, said animals are sacrificed but denounced the idea that people drink their blood.
"The animals are sacrificed in reverence, they are not butchered," Moro said. "They are offered up to different orishias (gods). The blood is the life force."
The men are due in Town Court tomorrow. |