Alaqua founder Laurie Hood said Athena, an Arabian mare, came to Alaqua in 2013 with several other horses as part of an animal cruelty case. Hood said the horse was neglected and abused, but gentle and kind with her rescuers.
“She was just the perfect horse to go to a family with little girls and have them dote all over her,” Hood said.
But according to the Valparaiso Police Department, beginning in April, a man trespassed onto horse stable property and began
Darius Shamod Galloway, 26, was arrested July 26 after authorities found him in Athena’s stall with his shirt around his neck, pants sagging and fly open standing next to the horse. He admitted to police that he entered the stable “with the intent to pet, fondle and masturbate to Athena.”
Shamod also said that was the third time he had been to the stable to
Galloway was charged with engaging in sexual conduct with an animal, burglary of an unoccupied structure and petit theft in the first degree. Police say Galloway stole a trail camera the horse’s owners had set up after growing suspicious someone had been entering the stall and harming Athena.
Galloway was released Monday on $3,500 bond, and is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 6. No attorney is listed for him in court records.
Hood said she and other representatives from Alaqua plan to be at all of his court hearings.
“I think it’s important that the judge know that there’s a lot of people who take this very seriously,” Hood said. “I hope that he’ll get the stiffest penalty that he can, per law.”
Hood said the horse is healing physically and emotionally from her wounds.
(NWF Daily News - July 31, 2017)
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