The company that pled no contest to running a puppy farm in Waimanalo was ordered by the court to pay nearly $700,000 dollars today.
Last year the Hawaiian Humane Society raided the puppy farm and filed 153 counts of animal cruelty against the owner of the farm, Bradley International.
But because that company no longer exists, the Hawaiian Humane Society says the company has beaten the system.
"These animals were treated as breeding machines, bred over and over and over, until their bodies can no longer reproduce all for the sake of money and profit," said Pamela Burns, from the society.
Bradley International pled no contest to the criminal charges and was sentenced in Kaneohe District Court Wednesday. The judge had ordered the company to pay the humane society more than $370,000 for the money it had spent caring for the animals, plus another $306,000 in fines. But Bradley International has since been dissolved. So the attorney representing it, Jason Burks, says the sentence has no teeth.
"They have no assets, so yes, at this point, unless something changes that's the situation it's at," he said.
The humane society says it is disappointed. In addition to getting the money, it was also asking that the company owner, Vernon Luke and his family, be prohibited from owning animals for breeding. The humane society says it is working with Big Island law enforcement to investigate a similar business the Luke family has already started in Mountain View on the Big Island.
Keoni Vaughn, from the Hawaiian Humane Society, said, "the same thing that's happening in Waimanalo is beginning again in Mountain View and puppies have already died. The conditions are horrible.">
The Luke family issued a statement, saying they "are not in the business of commercial breeding contrary to some misrepresented allegations, and are looking to move forward from this matter."
