November 4, 2010
Judge orders prison term for two men who used wild mustangs as target practice
US Magistrate Judge Robert McQuaid Jr. sentenced Joshua Keathley and Todd Davis to six months in prison for using two mustangs as target practice. The Judge rejected their defense attorney’s plea for probation, and stated the mean needed sometime alone to think about the senseless killings of the horses. “Drunken and boneheaded in not an excuse” for the crime, the Judge stated.
Keathley, 36 and Davis, 45 of Lovelock pleaded guilty in June to the November shootings of two mustangs they came across on the rangeland 150 miles north of Reno. The men had been drinking and were looking to go trapping when they saw the horses. They then shot the horses and left the animals to suffer a long, painful death. “Any hunter knows that when you go hunting, you want a clean shot,” said Fanami.
Horse protection advocates across the nation were outraged at such a heinous crime.
Daniel Bogden, US attorney for Nevada said, ” We take the harassment and killing of wild horses on public lands in Nevada very seriously.” It is hoped that this serves as an example how serious Nevada does take the senseless killing of America’s treasured icons.