U.S. probe of beagle breeder Envigo scrutinizes top animal welfare officials' inaction

Inotiv

09/03/2023 11:01

By Sarah N. Lynch and Rachael Levy
       WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - Top animal welfare
officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were
subpoenaed last year by a federal grand jury seeking to
establish why they took no action against animal research
breeder Envigo  NOTV.O , despite repeatedly documenting the
mistreatment of thousands of beagles, according to several
people familiar with the matter. 
    A deputy administrator of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS), Dr. Elizabeth Goldentyer, and its
animal welfare operations director, Dr. Robert Gibbens, were
ordered to appear before a grand jury in the Western District of
Virginia as part of a criminal investigation by the Department
of Justice (DOJ) into Envigo, the sources said.
    Envigo, a major U.S. animal research breeder, shuttered its
Cumberland, Virginia facility last year after the Justice
Department searched it and seized more than 4,000 beagles in May
2022. The company later settled civil charges alleging it had
shown a “disregard” for the dogs’ welfare, and agreed to forfeit
the beagles.
    The Justice Department’s decision to subpoena government
witnesses who would normally testify voluntarily to help build
the government’s criminal case was highly unusual, according to
a half-dozen legal and animal welfare experts.
         The decision to exclude APHIS - the federal regulatory
agency responsible for conducting compliance inspections at
animal facilities across America - from the May 2022 search of
the Envigo facility was also extraordinary, the experts said.
    “That is not only unheard of, that is orders of magnitude
out of normal,” said V. Wensley Koch, a retired 30-year veteran
of APHIS. 
    Prosecutors asked Goldentyer and Gibbens, who appeared in
November and August, respectively, about their management of the
Envigo inspections and why they did not take any action against
the company, despite the extensive documented evidence of
violations, several of the sources said.  
    Reuters was not able to determine how they responded to the
questions.
    Spokespeople for the USDA and APHIS declined to comment,
citing the ongoing investigation. 
    Goldentyer and Gibbens declined to comment through an APHIS
spokesperson, but in a previously unreported October letter to
U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, the agency
said it had "worked diligently to improve animal welfare at
Envigo."
    Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the U.S.
Attorney's office for the Western District of Virginia declined
to comment, as did the USDA inspector general's office.
        To piece together a picture of how APHIS operates,
Reuters relied on more than 800 pages of internal documents
obtained through a public records request by the animal rights
group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA),
public government watchdog reports, inspection records, and
interviews with animal welfare experts.
    The documents, which have not been previously published,
show a sharp divide between top officials and inspectors over
how to handle the litany of problems that successive inspections
found at the Envigo facility over a period of months. 
    The inspectors wanted APHIS to take a tougher stance against
the company for the mistreatment of the beagles.
    It is too early to determine where the subpoenas will lead
since the grand jury's primary goal is to determine whether to
bring criminal charges against Envigo or its executives for
animal welfare violations, obstruction of the USDA, making false
statements and defrauding the United States, according to a
court filing. 
    The subpoenas and the nature of the questions show that
prosecutors are also investigating possible wrongdoing by APHIS
leaders, including Goldentyer and Gibbens, several of the
sources said.
    The APHIS inspectors who documented dozens of violations at
Envigo in 2021 and 2022 were also compelled last year to appear
before the grand jury, where they were asked about possible
flaws with the inspection process and were ordered to provide
all records related to Envigo, according to sources who spoke
anonymously because the matter is not public. 
    The actions by those inspectors are not under scrutiny, one
of the sources added.
    
  
    INTERNAL STRIFE
    Between July 2021 and March 2022, inspectors documented more
than 60 violations during four visits to Envigo's Cumberland
facility, public records show. More than half were deemed
"direct” or “critical" violations. Direct violations indicate an
animal is facing immediate harm.
    Problems included dangerous flooring, failing to provide
veterinary care, unsanitary conditions, euthanizing dogs without
anesthesia, under-feeding mothers nursing puppies and failing to
document the cause of death for hundreds of puppies.
    APHIS policy states that inspectors who find a "direct"
violation must return for a follow-up inspection within 14 days.
    Yet, this did not happen with any of the agency's
inspections of Envigo, public records show.
    APHIS leaders and inspectors sometimes disagreed about what
details should be included in their reports and how resources
should be deployed, emails show.
    Lead inspector Rachel Perez-Baum asked APHIS leaders in
September 2021 to increase staffing and send four or five
inspectors for a planned October inspection due to problems such
as "uncooperative facility management” and “poorly managed and
incomplete records.”  
    But Gibbens and other APHIS leaders declined, saying in an
email that due to “optics" and the risks of COVID-19, the team
needed “to be limited to three.” 
    Her supervisor, Dana Miller, agreed with Perez-Baum, and
made a final plea to send inspectors in pairs, after Envigo's
staff “attempted to recant” their statements by claiming
inspectors misunderstood them. 
    The three inspectors found more "direct" violations in the
October inspection, public records show. 
    Perez-Baum and Miller declined to comment.
    Daphna Nachminovitch, a senior vice president at PETA,
warned APHIS that month about problems at Envigo following an
undercover investigation by the animal rights group. She now
says she believes the agency failed to do its job.
    APHIS "must be held accountable for its failure to enforce
the law," she said.
    A spokesperson for biopharmaceutical company Inotiv, which
acquired Envigo in November 2021, said the company is “fully
cooperating” with the Justice Department and no longer sells or
breeds dogs.
    Envigo “places the highest priority on the welfare of the
animals in our care and looks forward to an appropriate
resolution of DOJ's ongoing investigation,” the spokesperson
said, declining to discuss the probe or prior USDA inspections. 
 

    TENSIONS RISE 
    Tensions between Gibbens and Miller escalated shortly after
Envigo appealed some of the findings from the October
inspection, emails show.
    Miller expressed concerns after learning that Gibbens and
other appeal review team members planned to side with Envigo by
striking two of four contested citations from the final report.
    One removed citation faulted Envigo for interfering with the
inspection by providing "false information" and ordered the
company not to "interfere with, threaten, abuse ... or harass
any APHIS official."
    Gibbens told Envigo APHIS would strike the citation because
the company ultimately provided the requested information. 
    Less than a year later, however, federal investigators told
a judge they had probable cause to believe the company made
false statements and obstructed the USDA in their search warrant
application.
    Reuters could not determine why APHIS never took action
against Envigo, nor referred it to the Justice Department. APHIS
has authority to confiscate animals, revoke or suspend licenses,
and pursue fines through negotiated settlements or
administrative proceedings.
    Internal records show APHIS initiated a probe into Envigo in
2021. In early 2022, APHIS leaders discussed entering a civil
settlement with Envigo, emails show, but no action was ever
taken.

    TEAM LEADER REMOVED
    Tensions peaked between APHIS leaders and inspectors after a
107-page report from a third inspection in November 2021 was
rescinded by APHIS managers, who ordered the inspection team to
edit it down to 22 pages. 
        The move caused consternation among some inspectors and
led several employees to file complaints to the USDA's inspector
general, sources familiar with the matter said. 
    One of the complaints, seen by Reuters, alleged the report
was cut after lawyers for Envigo contacted Deputy Administrator
Goldentyer. Reuters was unable to determine why the report was
trimmed.
        While the final public report contains the same
citations as the 107-page draft, it is missing many of the
details to back them up, a comparison of the two documents show.
    Among the cuts: graphic details about faulty euthanasia
practices and detailed accounts of dog-fighting behavior deemed
"extremely abnormal for the breed."
    As inspectors prepared for another inspection last March,
Miller emailed staff to tell them Goldentyer was removing her
from supervising Envigo inspections. Miller said she was
disappointed but offered no explanation.
    “O.M.G,” inspector Kelly Maxwell responded in an email,
adding that removing Miller was "pretty extreme."
    Maxwell declined to comment. 
    The March 2022 inspection uncovered five violations, two of
which were “direct.”  
    APHIS did not follow up until May 3, when inspectors cited
Envigo for one violation: Failing to fix the dangerous flooring.
    Two weeks later, federal agents executed the search warrant
where they found 446 dogs in "acute distress" and in need of
immediate veterinary treatment.

 (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Rachael Levy in Washington,
editing by Ross Colvin)
 ((sarah.n.lynch@thomsonreuters.com; 202-579-0289;))