Long Island sanctuary slapped with 112 counts of neglect over malnourished animals, squalid conditions

A Long Island livestock sanctuary faces 112 counts of animal neglect for allegedly depriving dozens of animals of food, water, and shelter, according to prosecutors.

Investigators visited Double D Bar Ranch in Manorville last month after receiving “numerous complaints about the welfare of animals on the property,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a Friday press release.

The animals — which include cows, goats, horses, pigs, sheep, an alpaca, and even a peacock — were deprived of food, water, and shelter, according to the district attorney’s office.

5

5

5

They were unkempt and riddled with diseases, including “dental disease, tumors, matting, untreated wounds, lameness, respiratory infections, arthritis, emaciation, swollen body parts, and overgrown hooves, claws, and nails,” the DA’s office said.

John Di Leonardo, an anthrozoologist and director of Humane Long Island, helped the county rescue dozens of animals from the site — but he said hundreds more remain.

“It’s filthy. There are piles of feces, corpses of animals on cages with living animals,” he told The Post.

Di Leonardo and his colleagues found chickens with parasites in their legs and combs mangled from frostbite. One gaunt, malnourished mule was swaying from side to side, a sign of “extreme and chronic distress.”

5

5

On its website, Double D Bar Ranch claims to have started in 1999 when the family owners purchased 50 neglected animals from a farm next to their property. It eventually became a charity shelter for abused and abandoned animals, raising funds through donations and charity drives.

The ranch’s defense attorneys Nora Constance Marino and Joseph Murray insisted the ranch was not abusing its own adoptees, in a statement reported by Newsday.

Yet Di Leonardo, whose organization regularly visits scenes of abuse, said the ranch owner Richard Deveo showed all the hallmarks of a compulsive hoarder.

“Hoarding is a disease, and I would not be surprised if that is what’s happening here: A hoarder who turned his compulsion into a business.”

Di Leonardo said the owner asked authorities not to take his chickens, saying they were his “biggest money-makers,” and when rescuers carried away the peacock, he said, “You’re taking my main attraction!”

“He sees this as a business. But animal sanctuaries are not a business.”