Michigan man pleads not guilty to abusing 85 animals [Video]

PRESQUE ISLE (WWJ) A Northern Michigan man has been arraigned on cruelty charges for allegedly abusing and abandoning 85 animals.

According to a press release from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR); Scott Thompson, 56 of Hawks, was arraigned on and pleaded not guilty to four animal cruelty charges two months after the DNR conducted an investigation.

In June, DNR conservation officers responded to the 50-acre Thomas family property in Atlanta, in Presque Isle County in the far-north part of the Lower Peninsula. The officers had a search warrant regarding a dead horse. They found 10 dead animals including: four geese, two chickens, and a single horse, pig, quail and rabbit, the DNR said.

Officers ordered the owners to “properly bury” the horse. The other nine animals went to the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in East Lansing, where lab personnel determined the causes of death as starvation …