RENO (AP) - Two men accused of gunning down five wild mustangs in Nevada last year entered not guilty pleas before a U.S. magistrate Tuesday as horse protection activists outraged by the slaughter watched from the courtroom gallery.
Todd Davis, 44, and Joshua Keathley, 36, both of Lovelock, face up to a year in prison and $100,000 fine if they are found guilty of harassing and killing the federally protected horses.
Federal prosecutors accuse the men of "maliciously" causing the deaths by shooting the horses Nov. 28 on the high-desert rangeland belonging to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management near the California line about 150 miles northwest of Reno.
"We can't allow certain ignorant people or vested interests who have targeted these animals to get away with murder on public lands," said Craig Downer, a wildlife ecologist and fourth-generation Nevadan who serves on the board of directors of the Colorado-based advocacy group the Cloud Foundation.
"These horses are not just out there for sport and these guys are going to pay," added Elyse Gardner, who traveled from a ranch in Novato, Calif., to join Downer and a half dozen other activists in the front row of the courtroom gallery.
Daniel Bogden, U.S. attorney for Nevada, said his office has received as many as 8,000 e-mails from "all over the world" urging maximum prosecution of the two men.
"We take the offense very seriously, as the prosecution of these defendants should demonstrate," Bogden told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert McQuaid released the men without requiring a bond but ordered them to get rid of any firearms, working or not, until after the trial set for June 22.
"I have a broken shotgun but I'll get rid of it," Keathley told the judge, who instructed him to turn it into the Lovelock Police Department by the end of Wednesday.
Todd Plimpton, a Lovelock lawyer for Davis, and John Springgate, a Reno lawyer for Keathley, told AP after the hearing they had no comment.
The men were charged in January with "causing the death of a wild horse" after the BLM offered a $10,000 reward and the Humane Society of the United States added $2,500 for any information leading to criminal convictions in the case.
Prosecutors say the two men allegedly shot the horses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the remote area about 40 miles southeast of Cedarville, Calif. A BLM helicopter crew assisting in a horse roundup on Dec. 5 spotted five mustang carcasses in one area and a sixth dead mustang about a half-mile away.
Even though it is only a misdemeanor, Bogden said the charge is the most serious available under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
In Defense of Animals, the California-based advocacy group that helped mount the e-mail campaign with a form letter on its website, questioned why prosecutors didn't file separate criminal counts for each of the five horses shot.
Bogden would say only that "the provable facts and evidence dictate our charging decision and trial strategies."
Activist Terri Farley, Reno author of the popular "Phantom Stallion" series of children's books, said she attended the hearing Tuesday to show support for the way prosecutors have handled the case.
"What happened in the courtroom today is a far cry from what used to happen to suspected horse thieves in the Old West, but I'm really happy federal charges were filed," she told AP. "I'm thinking the feds must have enough to nail these guys."