Family’s animal abuse case rescheduled

By DAVID HULSE

LAKE HUNTINGTON — Town Justice Steven Sauer last week adjourned legal proceedings against three members of the Coy family, arrested earlier this month on charges related to a Sullivan County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) investigation, to December 18.

Noting that there had been a search warrant involved in the case, Executive Assistant District Attorney Kenneth C. Garn said the continuance allows attorneys to exchange information and prepare motions. Information included a video tape of the Coy home photographed during the service of the warrant.

When sheriff’s deputies executed the warrant on November 6, Yvonne M. Coy, 38, was charged with failure to provide sustenance, obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest. She was also charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a 10 year old said to be living in “deplorable conditions.”

Coy’s 16-year-old daughter was charged with second-degree assault, for slapping and scratching a deputy, obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest.

On November 14, deputies arrested Coy’s husband, Ronald Coy, 32, charging him with endangering the welfare of a child.

Sullivan County Legal Aid Attorney Charles Olsen was assigned the defense of Mrs. Coy and her daughter. Legal Aid Chief Stephan Schick said the endangerment issue regarding the 10-year-old child apparently is not that serious, since the child was subsequently returned to Mrs. Coy’s care.

Schick said he would not justify an  attack on a police officer, but suggested that if a distraught 16 year old defended her mother by slapping a deputy, “that does not constitute assault.”

Schick questioned the SPCA involvement. “I’ve had a number of cases involving them before… These people took in sick animals, animals that may have starved or died otherwise… animals that the SPCA themselves would not have taken in… and now [the SPCA] wants to prosecute them for it?”

Mr. Coy’s attorney, Joseph O’Connor, said he hoped to review the video tape and address the issue of the animal cruelty charges. He noted that the sick horses, which were the hinge point for the SPCA investigation, were in the Coy’s possession for only two weeks prior to the arrests and that bills of sale detailed the animals’ pre-existing conditions. “I think if we can get that charge to go away, the criminal [child endangerment] charge will go away, too,” he said.