02/22/10 Crook County
UPDATE:
A Crook County judge rules there was no probably cause for search warrants executed in a case of animal neglect. That means the bulk of evidence, including the horses, cannot be used. The Crook County D.A. is asking the Oregon Dept. of Justice to appeal the ruling.
The case involves more than a dozen horses in Powell Butte, which authorities seized and say were starving. The defendent, Robert Gruntz of California, manages investments for the horses' owner, who also lives out of state.
Read the judge's ruling here.
12/10/09 Crook Co.
UPDATE:
Robert Gruntz, a man facing multiple charges of animal neglect in relation to more than a dozen horses that were seized by the Crook County Sheriff's Office in March was back in court today. His lawyers filed a motion to suppress all the evidence, including the horses, collected by the Sheriff's office during their March 28th search warrant served at the Powell Butte ranch. A Crook County judge is reviewing the motion. A decision is not expected for several weeks.
5/7/09 Prineville
By Doug Johnson
14 horses, who were allegedly neglected and seized by Crook County, will now be given new homes. The horses have been forfeited to the county, and their former owner, Arlington Farms of California, must now also pay a fifty thousand dollar bond to the county. The horses were owned by doctor Ritchie Stevens in Park City, Utah. But according to the Crook County Sheriff's office they're managed by Robert Gruntz who runs the Arlington Farms Investment Group out of California. Gruntz has had a trail of legal troubles in the past. Several investors have filed law suits against him, some claiming investment fraud. Marvin Lancaster has invested with Gruntz since the late nineties. He says Gruntz uses the horses as write offs when he prepares investors' taxes.
"He was using the horses as lucrative agricultural write offs in order to zero out these people's income taxes," Lancaster says.
Lancaster says he thought the horses were being taken care of, and didn't realize what Gruntz was doing was illegal.
"I figure they must have been taken care of and probably pretty good, because he used the forty two thousand he got from me to feed them," Lancaster says.
Gruntz is also being sued in small claims court in Temecula California for seventy five hundred dollars. A man there claims Gruntz hasn't paid board and care for five horses there since last October. In the Crook County case, four ranch employees have been charged with animal neglect, including 35 year old Robert Albring junior and his father Robert Albring senior. Crook County Sheriff deputies say the Albrings would ask Gruntz for money to provide feed and medical treatment for the animals. KOHD tried to contact Gruntz and his attorneys, but they did not return our calls. The Crook County Sheriff's office will put the horses in foster care for the time being. But after the criminal trial they will most likely be adopted or auctioned off.
