Man pleads innocent in animal-cruelty case

Another case involving 10 more horses is pending in Sebring.
CANFIELD -- A man facing 13 charges of animal cruelty after 15 horses were removed from his township property has pleaded innocent.
An attorney for Thomas Skelton, 5156 S. Raccoon Road, filed a written plea with Mahoning County Court along with a motion for an order to force the state to make the horses available to the defense for physical examinations. The court granted the motion.
Skelton was to have an arraignment in county court in Canfield on Wednesday, but the plea and the motion were filed Friday.
If the case goes to trial, he will be tried in the county court rather than in the court of common pleas because the charges are misdemeanors. The case is set for a pretrial hearing at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 20.
Taken in October
The Mahoning County Sheriff's Department removed the horses from Skelton's property Oct. 26. Thirteen of them are his horses, and two of them were boarded with him, said Mahoning County Detective David Benigas.
Benigas was not available Wednesday to say whether charges were ever filed over the boarder horses.
A veterinarian involved in the case, Suzanne Wilcox, has said the horses were kept in unsafe and squalid conditions, were malnourished and their grooming was neglected. They are in foster care, where they are doing well, she said earlier this month.
Smith Township case
Another case involving 10 horses taken from a woman Oct. 18 in Smith Township is pending in county court in Sebring. Cynthia Bichsel pleaded innocent to an animal cruelty charge Nov. 7. She is set to appear in court for a pretrial hearing at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 2.
The Smith Township horses are also doing well in foster care, Wilcox has said.