Choate Pleads Not Guilty To Animal Cruelty Charges

By Thomas P. Caldwell

BRISTOL — Court proceedings in an animal cruelty case involving a Bristol woman who lost 36 dogs in building fires on Chestnut Street last fall are scheduled to continue with a trial management conference on Feb. 15.

Jennifer “Bobbi” Choate waived arraignment on five counts of animal cruelty prior to her Jan. 22 court date, entering not guilty pleas in Second Circuit Court, District Division Plymouth.

The charges followed the second of the two fires, on Dec. 13, when police found seven German shepherds in the unheated basement of the house where the first fire had occurred on Nov. 22, killing nine dogs at that time. The second fire occurred in a nearby cottage on the 90 Chestnut Street property, killing 29 dogs.

Bristol police initially charged Choate with one count of animal cruelty, but brought additional charges after the SPCA had a chance to examine the surviving dogs.

The five counts cite the unheated conditions on a day when the temperature was down to 12 degrees; seven of the dogs were in metal cages that were not dry or able to maintain the dogs’ body heat; Choate’s failure to provide the necessary care to a dog with an ear infection dating at least to Oct. 31; her failure to provide care to a dog with a paw infection that resulted in the need for an emergency amputation; and her decision to leave the 29 dogs that perished in the cottage with heat lamps attached to the cages, resulting in the fire.

During the trial management conference, the court is likely to combine the case with additional animal cruelty charges arising out of Alexandria, where police in that town cited her for keeping 22 dogs in an unheated barn on Burns Hill Road. Those charges were scheduled to be heard in the Plymouth court on Feb. 12.

Alexandria police filed 22 misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty after seizing the dogs from the barn Choate had been renting. They said the temperatures were below zero and the dogs’ water dishes were frozen, so they turned the dogs over the SPCA which took the animals to its shelter in Stratham.

In both towns, police said Choate was cooperative, turning herself in at the Bristol Police Station and following Alexandria police from the barn to their station for booking.

Choate had been breeding the German shepherds and advertising them for sale after previously operating Tarawood Kennels in Halifax, Massachusetts.

Both Bristol and Alexandria police had executed search warrants in October, based on complaints of animal cruelty, but they found no chargeable offenses at that time.

1 February 2018