By late 2014, she had amassed about 200 of them. They lived in underground warrens and wooden hutches. She raised them, she has said, “to be wild and strong.” After a news article drew attention to Ms. Trec’s colony, advocates began complaining to the police and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that the rabbits were not being cared for properly.

A hoarding specialist from the A.S.P.C.A. visited Ms. Trec in January 2015, but Ms. Trec sent her away. Then on Jan. 26, 2015, as a snowstorm bore down on the city, police officers and A.S.P.C.A. workers raided the lot and rounded up dozens of rabbits. They returned three nights later for the rest. They seized a total of 176 rabbits from the yard and the basement below the tire store. Prosecutors charged her with mistreating 125 of them.

During the trial, a veterinarian for the A.S.P.C.A. testified to each rabbit’s injuries. She had found that more than two-thirds of the rabbits had wounds, mostly from bites, and that around half tested positive for syphilis. Nearly three dozen had sustained genital or anal trauma, and still others had abscesses and skin inflammations associated with being kept in unclean environments.

Ms. Trec said any harm done to the rabbits was inflicted by the authorities. A neighbor who witnessed the first mass confiscation, Glorianna Cabassa, testified that it was “violent” and that the authorities handled the animals roughly. She presented photos of officers and A.S.P.C.A. workers using garden tools to corral the rabbits, and of rabbits crowded in cages in the back of a van.

The six-person jury acquitted Ms. Trec of 25 of the cruelty counts. But over and over, the forewoman read “guilty” as she was asked about each charge in Criminal Court in Brooklyn.