Here’s a little bit of justice to go with your morning coffee!
Aug 12 2010
Or your lunch, if you’re on the East coast. 
Brett Ingraham finally got arrested. Beats me why his wife isn’t in the pokey with him, but it’s a start.
Original blogs here and here and here.  This is really a testament to local people and the NickerNews web site raving and ranting and refusing to shut up until something was FINALLY done in a neglect case. Well, good work, you guys! Keep it up. I can’t believe they didn’t arrest Alexis. I did not know being pregnant was a get-out-of-jail-free card. Someone should tell that to all the ladies who have had babies behind bars. Actually, they should sue as this sure looks to me like a case of the faux-upper-class white girl getting preferential treatment, doesn’t it now?
(And doesn’t it just figure that along with being crappy backyard breeders, they have to have a baby, too? $10 says they don’t take proper care of him/her, either. If you massively fail at animal care, that might be a clue you’re not parent material.)
Now another important update and a call for action: (Original blog entry is here and as many of you know, I actually worked on this particular seizure, so keeping this man behind bars is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. When you have seen two year olds falling down because they are too weak to stand, it tends to get to you.)
Nebraska’s Parole Board has informed sources that convicted wild horse killer, Jason Meduna, will come up for review during the month of August with no disclosed date. The review is not public although public comment is welcomed.
Meduna becomes eligible for parole on October 20, 2011. The public is welcome to submit written comment to the Parole Board as all comments are kept on file and utilized in the board’s final decision. Meduna, nor his attorney, are privy to the comments.
If you would like to comment on the man who was convicted on 145 counts of cruel neglect of an animal resulting in death or injury please write to:
Board of Parole
Correctional Service Building
P.O. Box 94754
Lincoln, NE 68509-4754
As always, polite and succinct letters have the most impact. No one will be impressed by your repetoire of cuss words or your emotional outbursts. Keep that for the Internet – write this letter like you were writing a letter at work. Some points I’d mention is that Jason very clearly knew how to ask for help as he had a web site and a blog. He made a conscious choice to attempt to cover up the deaths of 80 horses from starvation, instead of admitting he needed help. He let hundreds suffer terribly rather than write a few paragraphs that would have resulted in help streaming in from all over the globe. The quick seizure and placement of the horses proves that people were willing to help. The only reason 80 horses died at all is human pride, and you can’t learn your lesson about that in a mere year behind bars.
40 comments to “Here’s a little bit of justice to go with your morning coffee!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment. Not a member? Registering is free, and you do it here!
Glad to see there has been action regarding the Ingrahams, although I fail to see that Alexis was uninvolved-perhaps more information will be forthcoming.
They had a warrant for her arrest. They just didn’t execute it because Sweetie Pie claimed she was preggers. Give me a damn break.
If being arrested is such a physically damaging experience that it would put a pregnant woman in jeopardy, perhaps an investigation into their police procedures is warranted, hm?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be a monumental pain in the ass having a third trimester pregnancy in holding in prison?
I mean, I can see where an established inmate in a “permanent” location would be managable with a pregnancy, doctor checks, new baby and all, but if she hasn’t been sentenced and doesn’t really belong anywhere yet…
Maybe they feel they can keep sufficient track of her that she can still be brought in to face the appropriate charges without having to find somewhere to put her and her big belly?
Just a thought.
Where does it say she’s in the third trimester? Fugly’s comments lead me to believe she isn’t even showing yet.
There is some more justice at least for this poor horse, check out the post on horse renuions
http://horsereunions.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1218
Jesus Christ, that should be a movie. What a tragedy, and what a save.
OMG – that`s terrible! And, at the same time wonderful. I`d be interested in finding out what happened to the poor girl.
The original buyer, Lisa of the oh-so-suspiciously-delicate womb, sounds like something of a flake. Horrific story, mainly about people’s inability to own up to the truth, eg.: “I sold her on, don’t know what has happened since, here is the name of the person who bought her, be respectful if you contact them.” Seriously, people, tell the truth. We won’t even comment on who starved the poor thing. And stop talking about your pregnancy like the world needs to be put on hold while you reproduce. Life and responsibilities are continuing for everyone else, and they won’t wait for you to pop out a child and raise it. Ugh.
I’m so glad the horse got a miracle save! She’d certainly been through enough.
If your pregnancy were really such an issue don’t you think showing your Stallion at Arabian Region IX would be a bad idea. She was still riding and showing her ARAB STALLION in mid-June. She got Reserve Champion (thanks GOOGLE) But the stress of coming up with a name was too much. And showing at Regional Level is $$$ so it’s not an I fell on hards times story either. She has been showing all summer, and poor Mae has been starving.
I am glad this mare got saved — but I think the original owner should have seen some red flags, if her story is accurate.
– person can’t afford to pay the purchase price of an green 13.2 hand mustang. Seriously, this could not have been a five figure horse. Red flag one.
– if the buyer can’t pay the purchase price, or doesn’t want to, because the husband says no, red flag two.
– no money to purchase? moving expenses? how then can the mare go to a trainer for 6 months? red flag three.
I am sure I would also be soothed by a lovely barn with brass nameplates and fancy tack, as well as a barn full of show horses, so can’t fault her there, but with such a reluctant buyer (two months to decide, can’t pay, etc.), I would have suggested the seller just walk away from these people. I wonder, though, about the delivery at a show — did the owner actually ever see the farm where this horse was going?
Sounds like the buyer dumped the mare almost as soon as she got her, and probably never intended to do anything with her. The reluctance to give any info on who later bought the mare is just weird — if it was a flip to make money, why be secretive about it? Afraid the original owner would get mad that they made a quick buck? Clearly the mare couldn’t have sold for much if she was starved and wandering the streets.
It also seemed suspicious to me that an Arabian show person would buy a mustang with no training for her kid to show in the hunters. Yellow warning flag there, at least. I suspect this was a buy on a whim, possibly with a plan for a quick flip that went sour when the mare wasn’t a 10K diamond in the rough or something. Was the fancy halter and nameplate to fool another buyer for her flip scheme? Or, they ran out of money, then were too embarrassed to admit it, and starting dispersing horses to anyone who would take them.
People suck. I say google potential buyers, see if they are actually who they say they are, or have done things like this before. Interesting things do show up with an hours (or less) worth of computer time. And again, if you really want a first right of refusal, or want a horse back for real, I think you have to visit the place where the horse is being kept at least for the first six months. Not just email or text. Too easy to dodge and lie. But frankly, if the buyers don’t want any more to do with you, not much to be done. I am glad this was a happy ending.
I got the guy’s salary in thirty seconds, btw — he’s a public servant — and at 40K at year, that doesn’t support too many show horses. And their website is down, but a cached version has this: “LOTS of NEW horses AVAIL at ROCK bottom prices!!!!! ALL must GO!!!!” Again, people suck.
I am the one who sold Mae to Lisa. Lisa and I had several very detailed conversations about Mae’s purchase price, her plans for her, and why she was making a low offer on the filly. I foolishly related to her situation. We have a few horses too, show as well, and I take on the occassional fixer upper resale project too. We have the money to care for ours, train ours, show ours etc, but when I want another one, I often get the “that’s too much money” speech from my significant other who isn’t a horse person himself, just a very supportive (and responsible) partner. We go to the auctions and pick up some diamonds in the rough too (latest is a lovely gelding that was donated to a rodeo assocation and used as bucking stock for 2 years; we got him for $250 at the sale and he’s coming along GREAT, going to make a super horse). Anyhow, in this case I did not take the low offer as a red flag that she didn’t have the money to care for, train, or show the filly, just that she wasn’t in the market for at the time, but fell for her and wanted her anyway. I did my research, saw her show horses, show results, pics of her farm, testimonials from those she partners and shows with etc. I turned down several potential buyers on this filly for quite a bit more money because I knew they were not the proper homes for her. She certainly didn’t go to the first person with the cash. I honestly felt this was the best home I could have hoped for for her. And that’s why the money wasn’t an issue…I’d have given her to the perfect home if it were really that.
Also, her husband is a public servant and I also found his income in 2 seconds online. However, if you spent 4 seconds, you would find that his grandfather died and left them a hefty inheritance. Also, spend 6 seconds and you will find that Lisa’s parents own her place, and have provided her with most of her fancy horses as well.
It isn’t fair to call Mae an “untrained” mustang. She had the absolute most amount of training and prep a 3yo filly could have. If you go to youtube and google “mae mustang makeover” you will see the videos of her training and of her freestyle performance at the show. She had everything done aside from carrying someone around. She was saddle broke and line driven and ready to go.
Explanations aside, I’m not here to say I didn’t make any mistakes. I obviously made the biggest one in selling her to Lisa.
I hope EVERYONE writes to that Parole board!!!!!!!!!!
Please consider donating to PBJ Connections. they use horse-based therapy to help troubled families and youth in the Ohio area. Recently, their main therapy horse and super lovable pony Rocky underwent emergency surgery to repair a displaced colon. You can check out their Facebook page or even Rocky’s Facebook page. Their website is here: PBJ Connections.
From their Facebook page
Donations can be made here:
PBJ Connections – Rocky
9800 Jug Street Road, Pataskala, OH 43062
or via paypal if you would prefer a credit card method. Our email with paypal is donations@pbjconnections.org
It’s expected his bills will be over $6,000 and his owners and the staff of PBJ Connections are scraping our pennies together to cover his care. Help if you can, and if you can’t, your loving thoughts are helping too!
Yeah, because the lady who clearly has absolutely 0 sense or ethics isn’t going to make a hot shot out of town as soon as possible!
I hope she’s being watched closely, I bet she’s about as loyal to her husband and even her unborn child (hard to get even cheap-o prenatal care on the run) as she was to her horses!
Regardless, glad to hear that action was finally taken! It’s terrible how it’s drawn out sometimes, but still satisfying when something comes of it.
And I’ll write at least an email, possibly even *gasp* snail mail
Ugh, Meduna. Sociopathic animal predator if there ever was one.
While I`m thankful that justice was served, his sentence is waaaaay too short. The images of what he did to those poor Mustangs are forever etched in my brain – and they`re not pretty. One can only imagine how the eyewitnesses of that whole debacle must have felt.
I`ll be writing a letter to the parole board – just the idea of him walking free makes me want to hurl.
OT: Glad you’re back, Fugs. I couldn’t access your blog for about 24 hours. Hope it was a maintenance issue rather than sabotage.
Re the topic today: Putting people like this in jail tp serve a sentence that is no-nonsense — that has TEETH, in other words — and KEEPING them there to serve their time is the ONLY way other such individuals are going to realize what they are doing (or not doing) to animals under their care is very possibly/probably going to come back to bite them, HARD, in the butt, the pocketbook, and they will have a blot on their “good names” forever.
You’re right about these folks asking for help if they find themselves in a bind. I follow several rescue blogs and helping with cash, goods, gift cards, or showing up with a muck fork and bucket now and then is always appreciated.
A quick reminder… this weekend is the celebration of one of the most popular public displays of animal abuse – The Omak Suicide Race! How this is STILL legal, I don’t even know…
A good ol’ informational video if you don’t know what that is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4pig67unHo&feature=related
Ugh. I’m sorry, I should have gotten to that this week but with the technical difficulties, I didn’t.
I apologize for throwing the proverbial rock in the hornet’s nest, but I feel that it has to be said. I don’t know why everone hates the Omak Suicide Race, but elite level eventing doesn’t seem to generate the same amount of anger. The number of dead horses and riders over the past few years has been appalling, and if I see another picture of a “rotational fall” I’m going to get sick. I know that some progress has been made with jump design, and no horses or riders died at Rolex this year for the first time in several years. I also know that there are many eventers who post on this blog who love and cherish their horses, and would never knowingly put them in harm’s way. I just don’t understand why horse and rider deaths seem to be more acceptable in one socioeconomic group and not another.
UGH… I dread every August for this very reason.
Oh Maddy, Maddy, Maddy…you are my hero. Thank you for not giving up. What a wonderful thing you have done. It is not easy and it’s frustrating and discouraging and it keeps you up at night and you cry and you get pissed (I don’t know that you did all that, but I sure have!) BUT YOU DID IT! I hope that this case sets a precedent and that it will become clear that people will NO LONGER stand by and let this crap happen. Technology has made us a force to be reckoned with. Dig in everyone. There are no animal welfare fairies (or they are extremely rare and hard to find) if you see a problem… network, figure it out and follow it through. Every one of these cases that individuals have the strength to push through make the law stronger and more enforceable against cruelty and neglect. They deserve it
Hmm. Did anyone else see the WARNING at the bottom of the comments? I should have copied it before I logged in. INteresting … I assumed tech difficulties, too, but that makes me wonder …
Okay, here’s what appears right below the “Log in to leave a reply” link, copied exactly (including excessive capitalization and creative spelling):
WARNING: Do NOT Read This if You Have Moral, Ethical or Religious Reasons Forcing You to Cower Helplessly While Someone Violently Attacks You, Your Wife or your Kids …
The words “WARNING” and “Violently Attacks” appear in red. A hacker/troll at work?
It’s just the bottom banner ad that’s been there forever, except now instead of Hworse and stuff it’s the more standard internet ads.
That one in particular is for some (scammy looking) self-defense DVDs. Certainly attempting to relieve you of your money, but not an actual hacker unless Fugly/the host didn’t approve the change in ads or something.
Yes, glad to see the site up again – I, too, thought you might have been suffering a DOS attack.
We may have been. I haven’t heard the whole report on what that was yet – I just know that, as usual, Core-Sec got it fixed!
Glad to see the blog again, kept getting some weird database error.
Although, the day without a reminder of mans inhumanity to helpless animals was surprisingly restful. Sigh.
How do people DO these things?
Reading some of the Maine links…it’s amazing how people are defending those scum bags…shaking my head…
I am glad to see some justice finally being served in both cases and hope Jason gets denied parole. There is absolutely no excuse for what he did to those poor horses. On the same note, our government is doing the same thing to bands of wild mustangs. When will there be justice for them?
After just hearing a horrifying report on NPR on how they treat pregnant women in jail — handcuffed for the entire delivery, even leg shackles sometimes because they worry the hospital staff and patients might be “endangered” — and worse, how the cops don’t have a clue about obstetrics so things can go badly wrong — I am on the sad of her staying out. Women have lost babies because of the care in jail. It is certainly possible they shied away from putting Alexis in jail because they felt they couldn’t get her appropriate medical care if she went into labor, if this is a smaller town. Sadly, in the larger scheme of things, pregnancy makes absolutely no difference in whether someone is incarcerated or not and would never be considered a reason for staying out of custody. You definitely want to avoid being poor and pregnant in jail. Losing a baby because you are in prison for shoplifting hardly seems like justice.
So it’s probably just as well she didn’t get put in prison, only for the welfare of her child. No need to punish an innocent baby for her crimes. Also, she does have other children — I realize she did horrific things to her animals, and deserves the consequences, but do her children deserve the foster care system?
oops, “side” of her staying out, should have used the preview button!
First there is NO comparing shoplifting to what Alexis has done for years to dozens of horses. And NO she does not have any children other than the one on it’s way.
She might not have a child. But I know from meeting them that Bret has a little girl.
They apparently had been talking about having a child together near a year ago though.
But I’m sure that she was just lying. Besides I still don’t see why that changed anything.
There are ton of women in jail that have children on the way.
“If you massively fail at animal care, that might be a clue you’re not parent material.”
Oh, but see, it’s their RIGHT to have a kid. A helpless little baby will be in their care, and I just wonder how long it is before it’s beaten or neglected to the point where CPS takes it away, and they’ll just make some more. When my mother-in-law worked for Head Start, there was a woman with a couple of kids who casually mentioned her older kids one day. My MIL was like, “oh, you have more children?”
“Yes, but the state took ‘em away from me. But with these two, I still get my check.”
Our new American attitude of rights – and privileges – without responsibility is really wearing me out.
It’s funny, this dichotomy: there are people who go through YEARS of heartbreak, hormone therapy, $$$ medical procedures, and convoluted adoption proceedings to have a child, and then there are the people who pop ‘em out and park ‘em in front of the TV or kick ‘em out on the streets to feed/fend for themselves (if the children are lucky and don’t get beaten or raped).
Same goes for animals, eh?
I know. See, that’s where I say – normally I’m a libertarian-leaning “do whatever you want, it’s America” person but we HAVE to put some boundaries in place on that to protect the innocent from harm. So bring on the regulations where they keep animals and kids from harm. I’m very glad CPS *can* take someone’s kids away and I’m very glad AC *can* take someone’s horses away.
Unfortunately, about 30 years ago, the whole anti-government movement started gaining traction in this country, fueled by Reagan’s rhetoric and other factors. And we saw the birth of privatization.
Now, many government agencies are underfunded, understaffed, corrupted by conflicts of interest, etc. And instead of working to improve those agencies, taxpayers are encouraged to throw the baby out with the bathwater and do without, or let our tax dollars go to $$$$$ private firms who’ve contracted with various segments of the government.
Somewhere, somehow, this ties in with the understandable dissatisfactions that we have, and this, coupled with no emphasis on “citizenship,” sex ed., very basic moral training (don’t hit that kid just because he took the blue crayon), or civics in this country, has contributed to the very rude, immoral, unhealthy and unhelpful attitudes that have ruined so many children’s and animals’ lives.
Anyway….. children and animals in one’s life should be viewed as the topmost privilege and reward of living as a decent human being – not the other way around.
As for Meduna…. I followed his neighbor’s blog for awhile, and the aftermath photos were heartbreaking. Those photos and commentary should be forwarded to the Parole Board, though that neighbor’s legal proceedings with Meduna might render it innapropriate. What do you think?
They should lock both of them up and throw away the key in the nearest cesspool. Stupid disgustiing piles of pig shit.
It was a sight when she first came to the barn in HEELS! They were either 4inch or 6inch…i can’t remember.
I knew that she was bad news the first sight of her. I didn’t know that Bret was just the same, bad news abuser and neglectful person. I thought he was a good guy, but after seeing all that happened AFTER I left the stables with my horse.
I’m very happy that I decided to move my horse, but I am so very sad for the loss of the horses lives there, and what they all went through.
I still don’t understand how a friend stayed there the entire time. And stood up for both of them, and believed their lies., and if I’m correct. STILL IS KEEPING HER HORSE THERE. I just shake my head at it.