JACKSON CO. – Today, PETA filed a complaint with the Indiana Supreme Court requesting that its Disciplinary Commission investigate Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Chalfant for apparent systemic abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
The move follows Chalfant’s failure to file charges in two cases of irrefutable, well-documented animal neglect exposed by the group: at The Veterinarians’ Blood Bank, which keeps more than 900 dogs and cats perpetually confined to barren kennels and severely crowded pens and draws their blood every three weeks, and at East Fork Farms, a decrepit factory farm where piglets were left to suffer and die slowly while their mothers looked on from inside crates.
The complaint points to findings brought to Chalfant’s attention from PETA’s recent undercover investigation into The Veterinarians’ Blood Bank, which revealed that the blood bank failed to provide veterinary care to Fox, a 13-year-old cat with bloody diarrhea who a manager admitted had “been going down a lot,” and a cat named Vivi who cried out in pain from a mouth infection that management had known about but failed to address for over nine months.
PETA’s investigator was eventually allowed to adopt both cats and sought immediate treatment. Fox was ultimately euthanized due to gastrointestinal cancer, and Vivi’s mouth was in such poor condition that all her teeth required emergency removal.
According to PETA, these failures meet the legal criteria for neglect, yet Chalfant, in a dereliction of duty, has refused to file criminal charges, and representatives of his office have hung up on callers who have expressed concerns about the suffering at The Veterinarians’ Blood Bank.
