Scandalous investigation into breeder of Envigo beagles in U. S. acquires new details
2023.03.09 12:08
Scandalous investigation into breeder of Envigo beagles in U. S. acquires new details
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – According to a few people who are familiar with the situation, top animal welfare officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were subpoenaed last year by a federal grand jury to explain why they did not take any action against Envigo, an animal research breeder, despite repeatedly documenting the mistreatment of thousands of beagles.
According to the sources, Dr. Elizabeth Goldentyer, a deputy administrator of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and Dr. Robert Gibbens, its animal welfare operations director, were given orders to appear before a grand jury in the Western District of Virginia as part of a criminal investigation into Envigo by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
After the Justice Department searched its Cumberland, Virginia facility in May 2022 and seized more than 4,000 beagles, Envigo, a major U.S. animal research breeder, closed it. After settling civil claims that it had shown “disregard” for the dogs’ welfare, the company agreed to give up the beagles.
According to a half-dozen legal and animal welfare experts, the Justice Department’s decision to subpoena government witnesses who would typically testify voluntarily to support the government’s criminal case was highly unusual.
According to experts, the decision to exclude APHIS, the federal regulatory agency in charge of compliance inspections at animal facilities across the United States, from the Envigo facility search in May 2022 was also extraordinary.
V. Wensley Koch, a retired APHIS veteran with 30 years of experience, stated, “That is not only unheard of, but that is orders of magnitude out of normal.”
According to a number of the sources, when Goldentyer and Gibbens appeared in November and August, respectively, they were asked about how they managed the Envigo inspections and why they did not take any action against the company despite the extensive documentation of violations.
As a result of the ongoing investigation, spokespersons for the USDA and APHIS declined to comment.
Goldentyer and Gibbens declined to comment through an APHIS spokesperson, but the agency stated that it had “worked diligently to improve animal welfare at Envigo” in a letter to Virginia senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine in October that had not been reported previously.
The USDA inspector general’s office, the Justice Department, and the Western District of Virginia’s U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment.
Reuters relied on over 800 pages of internal documents, public government watchdog reports, inspection records, interviews with animal welfare experts, and public records requests submitted by the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to obtain a public records request for APHIS.
The documents, which have not been released before, reveal a clear divide between top officials and inspectors regarding how to deal with the numerous issues discovered at the Envigo facility by successive inspections over a number of months.
The inspectors requested that APHIS take a more strident stance against the business for the way it treated the beagles.
According to a court filing, it is too soon to tell where the subpoenas will lead because the grand jury’s primary objective is to decide whether to bring criminal charges against Envigo or its executives for violating animal welfare laws, hindering the USDA, making false statements, and defrauding the United States.
According to a number of sources, the nature of the questions and the subpoenas demonstrate that prosecutors are also looking into possible wrongdoing by APHIS leaders like Goldentyer and Gibbens.
According to anonymous sources, the APHIS inspectors who documented dozens of Envigo violations in 2021 and 2022 were also required to appear before the grand jury last year. There, they were asked about possible flaws in the inspection process and ordered to provide all Envigo records.
The activities by those examiners are not under a magnifying glass, one of the sources added.
Public records indicate that during their four visits to Envigo’s Cumberland facility from July 2021 to March 2022, inspectors discovered more than 60 violations. More than half of the violations were categorized as “direct” or “critical.” An animal is at risk of immediate harm if it is in direct violation.
Unsanitary conditions, unsafe flooring, failing to provide veterinary care, euthanizing dogs without anesthesia, under-feeding mothers who were nursing puppies, and failing to record the cause of death for hundreds of puppies were among the issues.
According to APHIS policy, inspectors who find a “direct” violation must return within 14 days for a follow-up inspection.
Public records indicate, however, that none of the agency’s inspections of Envigo resulted in this.
According to emails, APHIS leaders and inspectors sometimes disagreed about what information inspectors should include in their reports and how resources should be used.
Due to issues like “uncooperative facility management” and “poorly managed and incomplete records,” lead inspector Rachel Perez-Baum asked APHIS leaders in September 2021 to increase staffing and send four or five inspectors for a planned October inspection.
However, Gibbens and other APHIS leaders declined, stating in an email that the team needed “to be limited to three” due to “optics” and COVID-19 risks.
After Envigo’s staff “attempted to recant” their statements by claiming that inspectors misunderstood them, Dana Miller, her supervisor, agreed with Perez-Baum and made a final plea to send inspectors in pairs.
According to public records, the three inspectors discovered more “direct” violations during the October inspection.
After conducting an undercover investigation, PETA senior vice president Daphna Nachminovitch alerted APHIS that month to issues at Envigo. She now says that she thinks the agency didn’t do its job well.
She stated that APHIS “must be held responsible for its failure to enforce the law.”
Inotiv, a biopharmaceutical company, acquired Envigo in November 2021. According to a spokesperson, the company no longer sells or breeds dogs and is “fully cooperating” with the Justice Department.
The spokesperson declined to discuss the investigation or previous USDA inspections, saying that Envigo “places the highest priority on the welfare of the animals in our care” and “looks forward to an appropriate resolution of DOJ’s ongoing investigation.”
According to emails, tensions between Gibbens and Miller grew shortly after Envigo appealed some of the inspection’s findings.
Miller expressed concern after learning that Gibbens and other members of the appeal review team planned to strike two of the four contested citations from the final report in favor of Envigo.
One of the removed citations criticized Envigo for interfering with the inspection by providing “false information,” and it instructed the company not to “interfere with, threaten, abuse… or harass any APHIS official.”
Envigo was informed by Gibbens that APHIS would remove the citation because the business ultimately provided the requested data.
However, less than a year later, federal investigators informed a judge that they had probable cause to believe that the company obstructed the USDA’s application for a search warrant and made false statements.
Reuters was unable to ascertain why APHIS did not pursue Envigo or refer it to the Justice Department. Animals can be taken away, licenses can be revoked or suspended, and fines can be collected through negotiated settlements or administrative proceedings by APHIS.
According to internal records, APHIS began an investigation into Envigo in 2021. According to emails, APHIS leaders discussed entering into a civil settlement with Envigo at the beginning of 2022, but nothing was done.
After APHIS managers ordered the inspection team to reduce a 107-page report from a third inspection in November 2021 to 22 pages, tensions between APHIS leaders and inspectors reached their highest point.
According to sources familiar with the situation, the move irked some inspectors and prompted several employees to submit complaints to the USDA’s inspector general.
According to one of the complaints that was seen by Reuters, lawyers for Envigo contacted Deputy Administrator Goldentyer and said that the report was cut. Reuters was unable to ascertain the reason for the report’s reduction.
While the last open report contains similar references as the 107-page draft, it is missing a considerable lot of the subtleties to back them up, a correlation of the two records show.
Some of the cuts: detailed descriptions of dogfighting behavior that was deemed “extremely abnormal for the breed” and graphic details about improper euthanasia procedures
Miller informed staff via email that Goldentyer was removing her from supervising Envigo inspections as inspectors prepared for another one in March. Miller expressed her disappointment without providing an explanation.
In an email, inspector Kelly Maxwell replied, “O.M.G.”, adding that Miller’s removal was “pretty extreme.”
Five violations were discovered during the March 2022 inspection, two of which were “direct.”
When inspectors cited Envigo for one violation on May 3, APHIS did not follow up: ignoring the dangerous flooring’s repair.
Four hundred and forty-six dogs in “acute distress” and in need of immediate veterinary care were discovered when federal agents executed the search warrant two weeks later.
