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State Goes First In NB Zoo Trial
A jury heard opening statements and testimony Tuesday in the Natural Bridge Zoo appeal trial in Rockbridge County Circuit Court.
The trial is scheduled to continue through Thursday.
Michelle Welch, head of the Animal Welfare Unit of the state attorney general’s office, representing the county of Rockbridge, presented an outline of the county’s case in her opening arguments.
“On Dec. 6 and 7 of 2023, state police and other law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Natural Bridge. What they found, when they peeked behind the curtain at the zoo, was a lot of animal suffering,” she said.
“You’re also going to see, through the evidence, that when no one is looking, when no one is monitoring, this zoo, when you peek behind the curtain, the conditions are horrible,” Welch said. “The animals are living in filth, they’re not getting adequate nutrition; lots of things are going to be wrong.”
As Welch told the jury, 100 animals are at stake in this case: the 96 seized on Dec. 6 and 7, and the four giraffes still at the zoo.
She urged the jurors to keep their focus on the animals.
“This is a civil case. There’s no jail time. It’s a civil case. It’s not about guilt or innocence. It’s about whether they cruelly treated or deprived those animals of adequate care, and whether those animals should go back to them,” said Welch.
“Animals don’t have rights. They have protections under the law, just like children. This case is about the animals, and whether the Mogensens should get them back.” Aaron Cook, attorney for zoo owners Karl and Debbie Mogensen, took a different approach, directing the jury’s attention to the story of the trial.
“We’re humans — what separates us from the animals is our ability to tell and understand and hear and live out story. In this courtroom, in the next week, we’re going to live out a story. In fact you’re going to enter into a story that’s already been going on,” he said.
“The story that we just heard over here is that Rockbridge County wanted to protect the animals from the horrors visited on them by the Mogensens. We’re going to hear about the December 6th search warrant,” said Cook.
However, Cook traced the beginning of the story back to the zoo’s founding.
“The story actually begins 50 years ago, when Karl opened the zoo in our community, and the zoo has been operating ever since.”
He also touched on some of the arguments made on the zoo’s behalf in the general district court hearing in January: that the buildings animals were seized from were winter housing, and that, at the time of the search, it had been several hours since keepers had fed the animals or cleaned their habitats. -Opening statements had been expected Monday, but the trial was delayed due to a dispute on a pretrial motion.
At a Feb. 14 hearing, Judge Christopher Russell had awarded the zoo attorneys a bill of particulars, requiring the state to list the animals seized and the reason for seizure of each.
Though the bill was provided by the court’s deadline, Erin Harrigan, attorney for the Mogensens, argued Monday morning that the document was insufficient, saying there was “an extra level of vagueness injected into the second version.”
While Welch argued that the bill provided was “comprehensive,” the judge disagreed. Russell called the document provided “not good enough,” saying “you haven’t told them what’s wrong.” He ordered government attorneys to create a revised version, and gave them until Monday evening to do so. The document was delivered Monday night.
After the discussion at the start of trial about the bill of particulars, jury selection began and continued for three hours.
Attorneys from both sides asked questions to narrow the jury pool, determining whether any had personal relationships with the Mogensens or business dealings with the Natural Bridge Zoo.
Potential jurors were also asked about their pre-existing opinions on zoos in general, and whether they had any connection to animal activist groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the Humane Society of the United States.
Nine jurors were selected, seven to decide on the case and two to serve as alternates in the case of illness or emergency.
Once the jury was selected, the trial was adjourned until Tuesday morning while the state’s attorneys worked on revising the bill of particulars. -At the start of the trial on Tuesday morning, the zoo’s attorneys acknowledged that they had received the bill of particulars from the state and that it was satisfactory.
Then the state began calling its witnesses as the trial got underway.
Christine Boczar, a sergeant with the Powhatan Sherriff’s office, took the stand to speak on the search warrants, for which she was the affiant.
She reviewed information provided in the warrants about two undercover visits to the zoo, in October and November of 2023, during which she recorded a number of concerns, including unclean habitats, animals fighting for resources, and a goat dead in its exhibit, which remained there for the duration of her visit.
Boczar told the court that she was contacted by investigator Amy Taylor, with the state attorney general’s office, about gathering information at the zoo.
The search warrants she later obtained contain lists of animals and medications seized from the zoo, as well as information provided by a confidential informant, who was employed at the zoo for several months earlier in the year.
In his opening statements, Cook said that this informant was hired by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has publicly expressed its opposition to roadside zoos in general, and Natural Bridge Zoo in particular for the fact that visitors are allowed to ride its African elephant.
Though treatment of the elephant featured prominently in the search warrants, she was not seized, as she was not on zoo grounds when law enforcement arrived on Dec. 6.
When cross-examined, Boczar said that she did not know the identity of the informant at the time of the warrant, or that they may have been paid by an outside organization.
Boczar was also present during the search of the zoo grounds and the Mogensen residence, and testified to a number of medications taken from the scene.
Two special agents with the Virginia State Police were called as witnesses to the search of the zoo, and entered a number of photographs into evidence Tuesday morning.
(Testimony continued into Tuesday afternoon, which was beyond this newspaper’s deadline for the week. Updates will be provided on the newspaper’s website this week.)
According to Welch, the county intends to call around a dozen witnesses, including veterinarians who were present during the search and veterinarians who have observed the animals where they are currently kept.
Expert testimony on the giraffes is also expected.
