‘Unnecessary and unjustifiable’ pain: Former shelter head charged with animal cruelty
One of the people accused of leaving countless cats in cages stacked in an outbuilding is facing charges.
Rebecca Howard, 44, is accused of second-degree animal cruelty, a gross misdemeanor, in Pasco Municipal Court.
Howard was the head of Neo’s Nation Animal Foundation, which took over running the Tri-Cities Animal Shelter in January. The foundation was responsible for providing animal control to the three cities as well as taking care of the facility on 18th Avenue in Pasco.
The investigation is separate from recent money laundering charges filed against the shelter’s financial officer.
The contract with the nonprofit ended in November after 30 cats and four dogs were removed from the shelter because they were sick or malnourished.
Howard and a manager left animals in cramped and filthy conditions without the “medical the animals desperately needed,” according to the charges.
“Countless cats had suffered unnecessary and unjustifiable physical pain because of their failure to do so,” according to the citation.
The manager has not been charged, according to court records.
This is the latest in a line of legal troubles facing the people who ran the shelter for nearly a year. Neo Nation’s former chief financial officer, Julie Chambers, is charged with embezzling money to pay for a Richland home.
Pasco has also filed a civil suit over $10,000 in bonuses paid to Chambers and Howard, and another $5,000 paid to the manager. The money was meant to help animals at the shelter.
The Benton-Franklin Humane Society has since taken over the shelter and with the help of area rescues gotten medical treatment for all of the animals that had been housed there.
The society has also gone through and cleaned the buildings.
Sick cats arrived healthy
The citation provides new details about the conditions that cats and dogs were left in while they were being housed at the Pasco facility.
City officials said they were tipped off about the conditions in the shelter, and made an unannounced visit. The conditions they found were concerning enough that they returned with Pasco police officers.
Pasco Detective Julie Lee said she got photos of sick cats and a photo of an emaciated dog that later died of kidney failure.
“I was informed the cats arrived at the shelter healthy and progressively got sick in the care of the shelter,” the citation said, quoting an employee. “The dog was said to have arrived at the shelter with a healthy weight and progressively became thin because of not wanting to eat. “
The employee said Howard knew about the dog, but waited too long to get it medical treatment. By that point, it was too late to save the dog.
The employee also suspected that Hernandez was euthanizing cats that were brought to the shelter.
When police arrived on Nov. 11, they discovered cats stacked in a filthy outbuilding that was infested with mice, according to the citation. Cages were stacked on top of each other, sometimes with multiple cats per cage.
Sick animals were mixed with healthy ones. In addition to the cats being immediately removed, countless more still needed medical care.
In ones case, they found a sick cat with a cut on its throat that had gotten infected. It had burrowed underneath two other cats.
The outbuilding was said to be off limits to some of the employees as well as volunteers. The veterinarian who came to treat animals was also kept out and had cats brought to her in the main facility.
After the animals were removed they were handed to rescues and foster homes.
“Some of these cats have since died, the surviving cats are still being treated for severe URIs (upper respiratory infections) and ringworm,” according to the citation.
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 12:20 PM with the headline "‘Unnecessary and unjustifiable’ pain: Former shelter head charged with animal cruelty."