KENTLAND, Ind. – Two days after his girlfriend persuaded a Newton County judge to lower his bond so he could afford to get out of jail and start working again, Edgar Gardozo-Vasquez – the only person arrested, so far, in connection to animal abuse allegations at Fair Oaks Farms – was in federal immigration custody.

On Friday, Newton County Jail officials transferred Gardozo-Vasquez, 36, to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Nicole Alberico, an ICE spokeswoman, confirmed Wednesday.

Alberico said Gardozo-Vasquez – who is from Mexico and had been arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in 2005 – would remain in ICE custody, pending the outcome of his immigration case and accusations that he is in the United States illegally. An ICE database showed Gardozo-Vasquez was being held at the Kenosha County Detention Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Gardozo-Vasquez had been in the Newton County Jail since his arrest June 12. He was one of three former workers at Fair Oaks Farms – the largest dairy operation in Indiana, about an hour north of Lafayette – wanted in connection with abuse of calves. The charges came after graphic, undercover videos shot in 2018 were released June 4, 2019, by the Animal Recovery Mission, a Miami-based animal rights group.

Gardozo-Vasquez was the only one of the three arrested on misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty and felony charges of torturing or mutilating a vertebrate animal. As of Wednesday, Newton County police had not reported arrests of Santiago Ruvalcaba Contreros, 31, and Miguel Angel Navarro, 38.

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What the federal immigration case will mean for Gardozo-Vasquez’s charges connected to animal abuse at Fair Oaks Farms was not immediately clear. Newton County court records show he is scheduled to appear again in Newton Superior Court on Aug. 12.

On July 17, Newton Superior Judge Daniel Molter cut the bond in half for Gardozo-Vasquez, from $20,000 to $10,000. That gave him the opportunity to pay $1,000, instead of $2,000, to get out of jail. That day, according to a report in the Newton County Enterprise, Gardozo-Vasquez’s girlfriend testified that he had a job waiting for him at a factory in Illinois and that he would return for future court dates.

Media reports after that day said Gardozo-Vasquez was released from jail.

But ICE has the authority to put holds on suspects to keep them in local custody for up to 48 hours to give federal officers time to pick up someone they believe is eligible for deportation. That’s what ICE did in Gardozo-Vasquez’s situation.

Newton County Prosecutor Jeff Drinski said the bond reduction to $1,000 cash, with a requirement for day reporting, was made by the judge over the state’s objections.

“I am not aware of his whereabouts, nor do I know if he will appear at his next hearing here,” Drinski said Wednesday. “In that event, I will ask for a bench warrant and ask that his bond be revoked.”

Charles Dargo, a DeMotte attorney representing Gardozo-Vasquez, did not immediately respond for comment.

That news came as the Animal Recovery Mission this week released a new set of undercover videos of abuse on a dairy farm, this time in footage shot between March and July 2019 at Natural Prairie Dairy, a 25,000-cow operation in Texas.

Natural Prairie Dairy has a connection just a few miles from Fair Oaks, having won approval from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management earlier in 2019 for a 4,300-cow dairy farm in Newton County. That plan was controversial, as some residents and statewide environmental groups protested over fears of groundwater contamination, among other issues.

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The clandestine video in Texas had a similar feel and tone of those at Fair Oaks Farms, an Indiana tourist spot that draws 500,000 people a year and has been billed in travel magazines as the Disneyland to agricultural tourism.

In Fair Oaks Farms’ case, the video showed calves being dragged, kicked, stomped and thrown by workers. The footage also showed apparent drug use among employees.

The June 4 release of the video was followed by consumer boycotts, as several grocery and convenience store chains pulled products made with Fair Oaks Farms milk from their shelves.

Fair Oaks Farms founder Mike McCloskey did not deny that the abuse seen on the footage. McCloskey said he took responsibility for a breakdown in training and oversight of what he called a handful of bad employees. He promised regular audits, better training and cameras that could show every corner of Fair Oaks operations where there was interaction between humans and animals.

McCloskey wasn’t available for comment Wednesday. But Fair Oaks Farms provided a prepared statement, deflecting questions about ARM's latest videos — "Natural Prairie is not part of Fair Oaks Farms" — and looking at what was happening at its operations in Indiana.

"For our part at Fair Oaks Farms, our focus remains forward looking and making progress on the actions we’ve outlined to enhance monitoring, training and education for our employees, and ensuring the highest standards of care and welfare for our animals," the Fair Oaks Farms statement to the J&C read.

Fair Oaks Farms has been keeping a running tab on its website – fofarms.com/progress – on what’s been done to address animal welfare at its facilities.

As of mid-July, 60 percent of the planned surveillance cameras had been installed, according to Fair Oaks Farms’ tally. Fair Oaks Farms also reported that it has contracted with Food Safety Net Services, a San Antonio, Texas, firm, to “conduct random, frequent and unannounced audits of our farms every two to four weeks.”

Couto said he remained skeptical, saying that Fair Oaks “wasn’t doing much more than saving face.”

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“I’m just telling you, I could probably go in there a year from now and get the same kind of footage,” Couto told the J&C. “It’s, you know, a dairy. … If it’s me or somebody else, if we went into a dairy that had those cameras and training and everything else, the abuse is all over the place – nothing deters it. We showed it again at the dairy in Texas.”

In the Indiana case, Couto said he remained at odds with Drinski.

On June 18, Drinski told the J&C that detectives had evidence that ARM’s undercover investigator – hired on as a worker at Fair Oaks Farms – coerced or encouraged workers to hurt calves for the sake for the series of videos that had started rolling out two weeks earlier.

Couto denied that allegation. He returned fire, claiming that Drinski had conflicts of interest, given his family’s cattle farm near Morocco and family members’ comments on a Facebook site called “We Stand with Fair Oaks Farms.” Couto demanded that Drinski step aside from the Fair Oaks case.

Since then, Couto said he’s talked with investigators with the Newton County Sheriff’s Office. But he and the Animal Recovery Mission’s undercover investigator – someone Couto has not publicly named – haven’t spoken with or been interviewed by the prosecutor.

Drinski told the J&C in late June that he planned to make no further comments to the media about the accusations made about him by Couto. But there’s no indication that he’s stepped aside.

Couto said he doubted that ICE’s detention of Gardozo-Vasquez would affect Animal Recovery Mission’s message in Indiana.

“There’s just not laws geared toward farm animals, and it’s always a slap on the wrist,” Couto said. “So, this really was more of an educational case for us to show how this is where your dairy is coming from, this is where your food is coming from, this is the truth, and this is really how the animals are being handled.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.