Animal Cruelty

Clara Nenadich jerked the pale yellow station wagon to a stop and hurried through the jeering throngs on East Ontario Street, past the television cameras and into the relative sanctuary of her Kensington rowhouse. Outside, the din continued. The rites of an ancient African-Caribbean religion, Santeria, had apparently once again run afoul of secular laws. A malevolent, carnival atmosphere persisted yesterday on the narrow rowhouse block between Braddock and Frankford Avenues, where Saturday an SPCA agent interrupted a religious ceremony that featured the ritual slaying of animals.

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham is to announce today that she has appointed a special prosecutor to handle the growing number of animal-cruelty cases in the city. Barbara Paul, an assistant district attorney, will be responsible for all cruelty cases that come through her office, Abraham said in a statement issued yesterday. The appointment is an effort to stem the rise in cruelty cases, which are increasing in severity, the statement said. Recently, cases involving cockfighting and pit-bull fighting have made headlines in the city.

John Dobran said he became involved with Al McGuckin's horse farm because he was concerned about the condition of the horses there. He didn't expect his efforts to lead to his own criminal conviction. The unusual case was to be one of the first major challenges of Save A Horse, a private Burlington County organization that Dobran, 38, of Delanco, helped to found to ensure better treatment for horses. Armed with a search warrant obtained from Municipal Court Judge Marie White Bell in Delanco, Dobran raided the farm with the state police on Oct. 1, filing six charges against McGuckin in the Southampton Municipal Court.

Rishawn Morrison appeared yesterday before Delaware County Court Judge James F. Nilon - an admitted cat lover - in shackles and dark blue prison scrubs. The Upper Chichester man, who had held down a kitten and set it on fire, said very little other than to plead guilty to cruelty to animals. Morrison, 19, had been held at the Delaware County jail since police arrested him at Chichester High School on Oct. 8 in connection with the death of Cuddles, an eight-week-old brown tabby.

LINDA GIACCIO, who was taking her 56 cats from Florida to Philadelphia in a van, "because she did not trust anyone in Florida to look after them," is paying the price for having a compassionate heart in a mostly cold, ignorant and greed-driven society. There are many Linda Giaccios in our neighborhoods, people who care about the welfare of the millions of stray animals created by the callous ignorance of "pet owners" who don't get their four-legged companions spayed or neutered.

Hercules was barely a dog anymore, confined and forgotten in a Gloucester County basement like a box of dusty, old toys. Meanwhile, upstairs, Roxanne Notaro's chocolate Lab "Little" had food, warmth, and love. Officials with the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say it's a miracle Hercules, an American bulldog, is alive after police officers found him locked in a small crate, covered in feces, urine and fleas in the basement of Notaro's home on Vassar Road in the Wenonah last week.

A national animal-rights group said yesterday that it has documented more than 100 violations of state and federal animal-cruelty and consumer-fraud laws by Biosearch Inc., a Philadelphia products-testing laboratory. A spokeswoman for Biosearch, which is in the 3400 block of B Street in Kensington, declined to discuss the allegations. "We have no comment whatsoever," said the spokeswoman, who refused to give her name and then hung up the telephone. Efforts to reach other company officials were unsuccessful.