WOODVILLE – A Colmesneil woman who was arrested in March in a large-scale animal cruelty investigation was denied a bond reduction last Tuesday in a district court arraignment hearing.
Ashley Dawn McFadden, who has been in jail on bonds totaling $70K since March 12, appeared at the arraignment, and was on the docket for three indictments, for which she pleaded not guilty.
She was denied a reduction of her bond, a request that District Judge Earl Stover III, representing the 88th District Court, did not entertain. McFadden is represented by court-appointed attorney Lee Hon.
The three charges she is being held on are all third-degree felony cruelty charges, with one of them stemming from a February arrest and the other two from March.
McFadden claimed to be operating a non-profit dog rescue operation called Southeast Texas Paw Patrol, along with her partner, Timothy Carles “T.C.” Brockman, a 28-year-old Village Mills man. Brockman was also arrested on March 12, and he, too, was on the arraignment docket Tuesday for the felony animal cruelty charge he faces.
Brockman has been housed in the Angelina County Jail on the one felony charge for animal cruelty as well as a Class A misdemeanor cruelty charge, and was on bond for a burglary charge when arrested, which is listed as a second-degree felony with no bond amount.
The bond reduction motion was reset for a future court date. McFadden remains housed in the Jasper County Jail.
When McFadden and Brockman were arrested in March, investigators seized 54 dogs, which were taken to a rescue facility in Montgomery County, and other rescue groups involved with recovery efforts on the property managed to save another 30 dogs.
The conditions were horrific, according to some investigators who were on the scene. Tyler County Sheriff Bryan Weatherford said that the smell of methane was overpowering from accumulated animal wastes and that the conditions present posed “an obvious danger to any person or animal behind closed doors and windows are the residence.”
McFadden was under a bond stipulation, already, from the February arrest, which required her to find a licensed rescue or adoption agency to place the animals with.
Although she promoted her organization on Facebook as a rescue operation, there are no records showing it as a registered nonprofit.
According to statute, if a person is convicted of felony animal cruelty charges, the person can face up to 10 years imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, per charge.
