Kijiji Buyers BEWARE of Puppy SCAM!

Gail Benoit & Dana Bailey continue to sell puppies despite their previous convictions of Animal Cruelty and upcomming charges on numerous other animal cruelty charges. They are now operating out of Dartmouth/Halifax area & continue to post ads on Kijiji in hopes of generating new sales.

"There was no doubt the pair mistreated dogs."

"The distressed state of the puppies was not a sudden occurrence. It developed over time. Even if the appellants’ control of the puppies had been brief — a matter of days — there was ample time and opportunity to relieve their then obvious distress, or to begin doing so,"

Characterization lacked "any air of reality" - Justice Peter Bryson Source





Friday, April 10, 2009

Puppy Broker Faints

CTV news Apr 9. 09

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1116020.html

DIGBY — Gail Benoit, a Digby County woman accused of selling sick and dying puppies, slumped to the floor in Digby provincial court Thursday after she was sentenced to 21 days behind bars for resisting arrest.

Upon hearing Judge Jean-Louis Batiot say that she was headed to jail, Ms. Benoit glanced quickly to her right, then fell, rather slowly, to the floor.

Some in the audience laughed while others smiled as they watched two sheriff’s deputies try to help the woman.

The court recessed, and as Judge Batiot left the bench, Ms. Benoit’s husband began to shout profanities and threats, saying his wife sometimes chokes.

"If my wife chokes in that jail, you fellas are going to be held responsible," Dana Bailey hollered, at one point addressing his remarks to "Mr. Batiot."

"How could you do that? This is not fair," he yelled at the judge.

Police and sheriff’s officers hustled Mr. Bailey out of the courtroom, pushed him out the front door of the courthouse and told him to move along. His wife, who had recovered by then, was then led away to jail.

In the fall of 2007, a search warrant was executed and 10 puppies seized from the couple’s home near Digby.

After a trial late last year, Ms. Benoit and Mr. Bailey were convicted on Jan. 29 of animal cruelty and each was fined $1,500 on Thursday. Ms. Benoit was also convicted of resisting arrest, for which she was jailed Thursday, and assaulting an SPCA special constable, for which she was handed a suspended sentence.

Crown attorney Rosalind Michie said Thursday that Ms. Benoit and Mr. Bailey have sold as many as 30,000 dogs in the past 13 years, sometimes selling 200 in a month.

Some people who have bought puppies from Ms. Benoit have complained to the provincial SPCA that the dogs soon died.

Ms. Michie also told the court that this is Ms. Benoit’s third conviction since 1994 for assaulting a peace officer.

"The Crown takes that very seriously," she told Judge Batiot.

She said Ms. Benoit and Mr. Bailey, who called themselves puppy brokers during their trial last year, have never accepted responsibility for their actions.

"All along, nothing has ever been their fault," Ms. Michie said. "There is no expression of any remorse."

The prosecutor said after court that she "would have liked to have seen a prohibition of (owning) animals" placed on the couple. But she said that under the Animal Cruelty Prevention Act, ownership of an abused or neglected animal is required for such a ban to be implemented, and it was determined during last year’s trial that the puppies weren’t owned by the couple but were merely possessed for the purpose of selling them.

Defence lawyer Michael Power said the level of neglect of the puppies was rather low. Although the animal cruelty charges dealt with 10 dogs, he said there is evidence that hundreds of dogs have passed through his clients’ care, the majority without complaint.

Mr. Power said Mr. Bailey, who turns 47 next week, is disabled and receives $869 a month from the Workers’ Compensation Board. Ms. Benoit, 39, also is disabled, the lawyer said, and gets $830 a month.

"They are not bad people. They are business people," Mr. Power said.

He said their puppy brokerage has been hurt by negative publicity.

"The business is basically in limbo now," he said.

Mr. Power also told the court that his clients sometimes speak their minds too freely in public.

"They blurt things out," he said.

"I’ve admonished them . . . I’ve told them to quiet down those emotions. But they do become emotional."

Ms. Benoit and Mr. Bailey must also pay $2,478 in restitution for care and treatment of the sick puppies, and Ms. Benoit will be on probation for 18 months.

Gail Benoit Faints at Prospect of Going to Jail
http://dogkisser.blogspot

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Gail Benoit gets jail time for 2007 assault





April 9th 2009 by Jeanne Whitehead/Digby Courier

After shouting at Judge Jean-Louis Batiot, Dana Bailey continued his verbal tirade as he left the court house Jeanne Whitehead photo Gail Benoit gets jail time for 2007 assault
Benoit, Bailey each fined $1500 for animal cruelty

Today, seconds after Judge Jean-Louis Batiot sentenced Gail Benoit to 21 days jail time for her 2007 assault of SPCA special constable Nancy Noel, the female half of the Benoit Bailey puppy broker team began weeping and her knees buckled beneath her.

Her apparent medical crisis triggered a verbal outburst by her common law spouse, Dana Bailey.

“How could you do this to a woman who has had surgery on tumours in her neck?” Bailey yelled at the judge. “How could you do this? She has kids at home.”

Benoit and Bailey were also each fined $1,500 for animal cruelty and instructed to pay restitution of $2478 to the SPCA.

The April 16 sentencing was in response to being found guilty on assault and animal cruelty charges stemming from the 2007 seizure of 10 sick, malnourished puppies from their Roxville property.

The raid by SPCA officers (accompanied by RCMP officers) took place on two October days, a point that was duly noted by Judge Batiot.

The judge was prepared to disregard the fact that Benoit had two prior convictions in the mid 90s for assaulting peace officers, and sentenced her to 18 months probation on her first Oct. 2007 assault charge. But the fact that she assaulted and obstructed Noel two days later—at a time when she had already consulted with her lawyer—meant her behavior must be denounced.

Crown attorney Rosalind Michie had also asked the judge to ban Benoit and Bailey from animal ownership, but the law indicates that such a ban can be imposed when the animals that have suffered cruelty or neglect are owned by the abuser.

The Valley Bull puppies that were seized in October 2007 were owned Pat Harlow-Robar who expected Benoit and Bailey to sell the pups on her behalf.

Benoit and Bailey will appear in court again in September on animal cruelty charges relating to their 2008 sale of sick and dying puppies


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Local News Update April 9, 2009

A woman convicted of animal cruelty and assault will spend 21 days in jail. The sentencing of Gail Benoit happened in Digby Court this morning, and Benoit passed out when she heard the ruling. Benoit and her husband Dana Bailey, who was also convicted on animal cruelty charges, have been fined and are prohibited from owning animals for the next 8 months, pending their trial on more animal cruelty charges.

The two who were selling puppies were charged after several of the dogs they sold died from Parvo Virus. Bailey became very loud upon hearing the ruling, and had to be escorted out of the courthouse by the RCMP. Benoit was sentenced to jail time because it's her third assault conviction. http://www.k-rock893.com/index.asp?mn=12