Vermont’s attorney general and one of his prosecutors are being honored by the Humane Society of the United States for criminally prosecuting a slaughterhouse where calves were being abused.
Attorney General William Sorrell and Cindy Maguire, the chief of the AG’s criminal division, were given a Humane Law Enforcement Award for 2010 for their crackdown on Bushway Packing Inc., a former slaughterhouse in Grand Isle.
Two people were prosecuted for their roles in the abuse. Employee Christopher Gaudette pleaded guilty to felony animal cruelty and got 30 days on a work crew. Slaughterhouse co-owner Frank Perretta was fined $2,000 and given a suspended one-year sentence after pleading no contest to misdemeanor animal cruelty.
Sorrell noted that the case stemmed from undercover video filmed by a Humane Society operative.