Published: June 29, 2009 09:36 pm      

Turkey plant worker sentenced for animal cruelty

LEWISBURG, W.Va. (AP) — A worker at a West Virginia turkey plant was sentenced Monday to a year of home confinement for stomping on a bird’s head and slamming another to the ground, abuse that was caught on video tape by animal rights activists.

Edward Eric Gwinn of Crawley will be jailed if he violates the terms set by Greenbrier County Circuit Judge James Rowe, who also fined Gwinn $1,000 and ordered him to have no contact with domestic animals.

Gwinn and Scott Alvin White of Second Creek were indicted on felony charges in February, but each pleaded guilty to two animal cruelty misdemeanors in April.

White was sentenced June 8 to a year in jail but can petition for home confinement, a court clerk said.

The men were videotaped last fall by an operative of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who went undercover to the Aviagen Turkeys Inc. plant in Lewisburg.

“Greenbrier County prosecutors have set an important precedent for cases involving cruelty to animals on factory farms, whose abuse has often gone unnoticed,” PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk said in a prepared statement. “To all those good people who are appalled at the violence uncovered in this case, we suggest exploring a vegetarian diet.”

Aviagen, a subsidiary of Alabama-based Aviagen Inc., fired both men in November, along with co-worker Walter Lee Hambrick of Fairlea. Hambrick’s case is still pending.

In 2004, Norfolk, Va.-based PETA carried out a similar undercover video sting in West Virginia against Texas-based Pilgrim’s Pride at the company’s Moorefield plant. The company fired 11 employees in that case, but none were criminally charged.