NEWSDAY - October 5, 2006
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO - Newsday Staff Writer
Dozens of retired New York Police Department horses spending their sunset
years grazing on land in Orange County are at the center of a legal battle
between the city and the landowners over allegations that the noble steeds had
been mistreated.
Some of the animals were grossly underweight, had difficulty chewing and were
kept in stalls without straw bedding, according to a police veterinarian who
filed an affidavit in the case in 2005.
As the dispute, which began in 2005, makes its way through court it could end
with the horses, once the stalwarts of the NYPD Mounted Unit, shipped off to
another farm. Two alternate sites in New York State and one in New Hampshire
have been identified, said police spokesman Paul Browne. He said the NYPD also
allows people to adopt horses.
Legal issues surrounding the case are a bit arcane and revolve around things
real estate lawyers are paid to worry about. But a decision in July by acting
Supreme Court Judge Elaine Slobod in Orange County focused on a peculiar legal
rule, the "Rule Against Perpetuities," that put the 1983 agreement and
subsequent contracts for the care of the horses on the private Otisville farm
into question.
City lawyer John Low-Beer said there are 33 horses now stabled on 170 acres
of land and they are entitled to good treatment and "a happy retirement."
The controversy is rooted in the 1983 sale of the city's old Otisville
Veterinary Service Laboratory for $490,000. The corporate purchaser agreed that
both it and its successors would pay the cost of caring for the pensioned horses
until the death of the last horse or 10 years after the city disbanded the
mounted unit. The horses range from 20 to 30 years old.
According to court records, the land was sold to Breonics, Inc., a start-up
biomedical company, for $1 million in June 2001. In 2003 Breonics' president got
approval from the city to sell 54 acres of the property not used by the horses
to Mt. Hope Technology Park, LLC.
Things seemed fine until city officials in 2005 got information from an
Otisville neighbor who alleged the horses weren't being cared for properly. NYPD
officials and veterinarian Dennis Farrel visited and found eight of the 58
horses grossly underweight, according to court papers. Other horses were unkempt
and had no record of dental care in two years, Farrel said in an affidavit. The
city spent $140,000 for hay, heating oil and veterinary supplies to help, said
Farrel.
But after the city filed suit for breach of contract and to reverse the sale
to Mt. Hope Technology, Slobod said there was a problem because the original
1983 deal involved selection of the animals' imprecise life span as a benchmark
for measuring the performance of the contract. Still, Slobod thinks Breonics has
an obligation to care for the horses at their expense. Low-Beer said settlement
negotiations are under way. Neither Breonics nor its attorneys would comment.
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