Virginia Winter told to get horses off her property

By Abby Sewell
Molalla Pioneer

A Clackamas County Circuit Court judge told Molalla resident Virginia Winter today that not only is she not allowed to own animals, she may not have any contact with them; and that includes keeping other people’s horses on her property.

Winter was convicted on nine counts of animal neglect in November 2006 after a total of 42 cats, dogs, horses and guineau pigs were confiscated from her property, many of them malnourished and ill. As part of her sentence, she was banned from possessing any animals during her 18-month probation and banned from possessing any domestic pets for five years after her conviction.

Winter was arrested again in September 2007 after the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office discovered that she had a dozen horses living on her property, south of Molalla. However, the horses belonged to a family that was leasing the barn and pasture area, and Winter maintained she didn’t consider the animals to be in her possession.

Malcolm McDonald, parole and probation supervisor with the Clackamas County Parole and Probation Office, said it was his feeling that having horses on the property, whether Winter owned them or not, could be considered possession.

“She has access to them, it’s her property and she controls the property,” he said. “To me, I would say it’s possession … There’s nothing to prevent her from having control of those horses.”

Judge Jeffrey S. Jones did not find Winter to be in violation of her probation, but he did agree to the district attorney’s request to add stricter terms to her probation conditions.

The new terms say that Winter may not participate in the “equine industry or sport”, must have no contact with animals and may not possess trailers or devices used to transport animals, with the exception of one trailer that Winter said she plans to use for moving furniture and personal possessions after selling her house. 

“I feel very good about it,” CCSO Deputy District Attorney Kimberly Graves said of the judge’s order. “It was exactly what we were asking for.”

Winter declined to comment on the case. Her attorney, Mark Bailey, said that although he would have preferred that Winter be allowed to continue leasing the pasture out, he was pleased that the judge had not found Winter to be in violation of her probation.

“She received a rather stiff punishment for animal neglect, and she has all but completed her punishment,” he said. “People ought to put this behind them and consider the court’s punishment sufficient.”

The judge gave Winter two weeks to make arrangements for moving the horses currently housed on her property. CCSO Livestock Deputy Morgan Guthner, who found the horses there on Sept. 25, 2007, said the animals appeared to be in good condition at the time.

Bailey said that his client had been advised by a realtor to get some livestock in the pasture to keep the grass down, in hopes of making the house more attractive to potential buyers. The court had ordered Winter to sell her house to pay restitution in a separate case, in which Winter was convicted of felony criminal mistreatment for taking about $390,000 in funds from a trust account left by her father for the care of her mother, Mary Winter. Mary had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and was living in an adult foster home at the time.

Although Graves had no conclusive proof of it, she said she believes Virginia has continued to spend money on the care and feeding of horses, rather than paying the restitution owed to the trust. Aside from the 18 horses confiscated by CCSO, Graves said Virginia previously had about 30 other horses that the court ordered her to have removed from her property when she was sentenced.

“I’m just curious as to where her other horses ended up,” Graves said. “I think that they’re throughout the Molalla area and that she’s helping take care of them.”

Virginia is facing a separate probation violation for failing to pay back the funds taken from her mother’s trust account, where the outstanding balance stands at $367,712.

Mary died in May of 2007, and Bailey said that it was Virginia’s understanding that upon her mother’s death, payments to the trust would cease. A hearing in the matter is set for Feb. 4.