Animal cruelty charges re-filed in Green Acre case

Prosecutors have re-filed a new set of animal-cruelty charges against the owners of a Gilbert-area kennel where more than a dozen dogs were found dead at their home last June.

The move was announced Wednesday in what was supposed to be a routine hearing for the kennel's owners, Jesse Todd and MaLeisa Hughes, but the remaining fraud charge the owners faced was dismissed and re-filed in the new indictment.

While the new indictment reinstates previously dismissed charges against the kennel's owners, the allegations did not extend to Logan and Austin Flake, the caretakers who discovered the animals and who were previously accused of animal cruelty.

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The Hugheses' attorney, Robert Jarvis, said Wednesday morning that he was disappointed prosecutors chose to re-file the animal-cruelty charges against his clients.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hughes have done nothing criminal," Jarvis said. "You can remix the facts all you want, but you can't make something smell good that smelled bad in the first place.

"We maintain that the truth will come out in the court room and that's what we are fighting."

John Schill, a civil attorney for the pet owners, said his clients still have questions about the Flakes and any role their care or neglect of the animals might have played in the deaths.

"They were the ones on the scene," Schill said. "They did nothing. They should have known what to do."

The Flakes found more than a dozen dogs dead and distressed on June 20. In total, 21 dogs in the room died — 20 of which belonged to customers and one of which belonged to the kennel's owners.

Authorities said the dogs died of overheating and suffocation caused by sweltering conditions in a cramped 9-by-12 room they were kept in overnight.

Sheriff's investigators in September recommended 21 felony charges of cruel animal neglect and various misdemeanors against the Hugheses and the Flakes.

A grand jury handed up an indictment in October that accused the Green Acre Dog Boarding owners of 22 felony counts and seven misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals, in addition to one one felony count of fraudulent schemes and artifices.

The indictment also accused the Flakes of 21 felony counts and seven misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals.

County Attorney Bill Montgomery dropped all charges except the count of fraud against the Hugheses in December. New evidence that defense attorneys brought to prosecutors' attention after the case was presented to a grand jury suggested that the kennel's air-conditioning unit had stopped working because of a dirty air filter.

Logan Flake, the Hugheses' daughter; and Austin, son of U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., filed an $8 million notice of claim this year against the Sheriff's Office after the criminal charges they were facing were dismissed.

The Flakes' notice of claim said they watched the Hugheses put more than 20 dogs inside the overnight room without incident multiple times and had been instructed to do the same.