EVANSVILLE — A locally inspired package of statewide animal welfare reforms sailed through the Indiana House of Representatives last week and now moves into the Senate with a high-ranking sponsor.
House Bill 1165, authored by State Rep. Wendy McNamara with help from Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers, passed the House by a margin of 85-6 and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law. Its sponsor in the Senate is Sen. Cyndi Carrasco, an Indianapolis Republican who is the committee’s ranking member.
All local House members voted for the bill except Republican Rep. Matt Hostettler, who was one of the six who voted no. Hostettler did not return a message from the Courier & Press seeking comment.
HB 1165 survived the House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code relatively unscathed. Moers celebrated the retention of one component of the bill that she and McNamara had said is important to them.
It would increase the penalty for killing a law enforcement animal from a Level 6 felony to a Level 5 felony. That’s a big difference: A Level 6 felony carries from 6 to 30 months in prison. The penalty for a Level 5 is one to six years.
“It (raising the felony level) had been tried before but they didn’t do it, but they kept it in this time, so that’s good,” Moers told the Courier & Press Friday.
Moers had been prepared to reluctantly kiss the provision goodbye if it didn’t survive the House committee, given that other provisions were even more important to her.
Among them:
McNamara’s bill would allow prosecutors to file felony charges in allegedly horrific animal abandonment and neglect cases, where that wasn’t possible before unless the alleged offender had a previous conviction for the same offense.
A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to one year in jail. But in some cases, Moers says, that’s just not enough.
Two cases stirred prosecutor to act
Moers was stirred to seek the changes that are on the table now in part by the 2025 case of Martin Haugland.
In May, Haugland was charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of cruelty to an animal.
A report filed by EPD’s Humane Unit in Haugland’s case tells of dead kittens packaged in a plastic bag in a freezer “as if they were just meat,” two long-dead cats found on a basement floor, maggots moving along the base of a toilet, stairs and floors covered in “brown matter” and an officer who threw up at the scene.
But Moers said she was hamstrung by the fact that Indiana prosecutors can’t file felony animal cruelty charges unless the alleged offender has a previous conviction for the same thing. Haugland didn’t.
After Haugland pleaded guilty to all 10 counts against him in October, Superior Court Magistrate Molly Briles sentenced him to a year in jail. Each of the 10 counts against Haugland was punishable by up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine — and Briles theoretically could have sentenced him to 10 consecutive one-year sentences — but Vanderburgh County judges historically are more lenient than that in animal cruelty cases.
Haugland may have expected similar treatment. Even with his guilty pleas, he is appealing his sentence. He has a due date of Feb. 13 for a brief to the Court of Appeals of Indiana.
Shayna Burko
And then there’s Shayna Burko, who currently faces three Level 6 felony counts of cruelty to an animal in Warrick County.
Burko’s two previous animal cruelty convictions, the shocking nature of those crimes and the failure of a judge to put her behind bars after her most recent conviction are the principle reasons the Vanderburgh Humane Society rallied people to show up at hearings in her case in Warrick in November.
It started in February 2018 with five counts of cruelty to an animal filed against Burko in Warrick County. A year later, she pleaded guilty to three Class A misdemeanor counts and the other two counts were dismissed.
Burko received a suspended jail sentence and a year of probation, court records show.
“Terms and conditions of probation are that the defendant shall get no new criminal arrests, charges, or cases; shall not own or be around any vertebrate animals with the exception of her grandmother s German shepherd; and shall show proof of continued mental health treatment,” states the online docket in MyCase, Indiana’s free court records database.
Burko’s second conviction for animal cruelty came in Vanderburgh County in 2023, when she pleaded guilty to seven felony-level counts of cruelty to an animal in a case involving malnourished and dismembered animals that were found in her care. The prosecutor’s office reported officers found “a (dead) German Shepherd in a kennel with bags of dog food next to it, a decapitated dog, a dog missing a paw (but still alive), and a dog limb found in a hallway.”
Moers’ office sought prison time for Burko, noting her prior animal cruelty conviction, violation of bail conditions and “the egregiousness of the crime itself.”
But Magistrate Judge Ryan C. Reed sentenced Burko to two years of probation. Burko was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation, her sentencing document shows. Reed also ordered her to “not to possess any animals on her own” other than one service animal.
Burko was charged yet again in January 2025 — this time with three counts of cruelty to an animal, a Level 6 felony because of her previous convictions. That’s the case for which she is set to stand trial in Warrick County on April 14.
Burko’s mother, Kimberley Burko, who shared a home with her, was hit with the same charges. Kimberley Burko has a previous misdemeanor animal cruelty conviction. Her jury trial on the current charges had been set for Feb. 10, but a crowded court docket has both sides in the case meeting Monday to choose a new date.
The charges the Burkos face are not pretty.
According to a news release at the time from Warrick County Sheriff Mike Wilder, deputies were dispatched to a home in the 7700 block of Maeylyn Court to serve a warrant stemming from an animal cruelty complaint.
There, they reportedly found and eventually removed “approximately 20 dogs, two birds, two turtles, three sugar gliders (gliding possums), one cat, two bearded dragons, one gecko and a tank of beta fish.” They also found a “dead turtle, dead guinea pigs and fish.”
In November, Warrick County prosecutors “request(ed) that a condition of Defendant’s (Shayna Burko’s) bond be that she is to have absolutely no animals in her possession/control.”
Looking ahead
Warrick Deputy Prosecutor Jon Schaefer confirmed Friday that he won’t be offering plea deals to either of the Burkos. They will have to go to trial or plead guilty as charged.
It still bothers Vanderburgh County prosecutor Moers that Shayna Burko did not go to prison in 2023, when she pleaded guilty to seven felony-level counts of cruelty to an animal in a case involving malnourished and dismembered animals.
Moers said she is thrilled that the current version of McNamara’s bill leaves intact the provisions giving prosecutors the ability to charge felonies in certain cases and increasing the penalty for killing a law enforcement animal.
“I think both are a big win for justice and a recognition of the severity of crimes on animals and how they are a reflection of the overall depravity of our society in the worst cases,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Vanderburgh prosecutor sees action on locally inspired animal welfare bill
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
