The California attorney and animal rights activist who organized two recent raids of the Ridglan Farms beagle breeding facility in Blue Mounds has been banned from Dane County, except for court appearances.
Wayne Hsiung appeared in court April 21 on a felony burglary charge following his arrest three days earlier. Dane County Court Commissioner Brian Asmus set Hsiung’s bail at $20,000, barred him from Dane County except for court hearings or visits with his attorney, banned him from Blue Mounds and ordered no contact with Ridglan Farms or anyone connected to it.
Hsiung was released from custody the same day.
“I certainly understand Mr. Hsiung’s passion and concern for animals,” Asmus said at the hearing. “That said, you don’t get to take the law in your own hands.”
Ridglan Farms breeds beagles for sale to medical research laboratories. State regulators have documented hundreds of violations at the facility, and activists claim the dogs continue to be mistreated.
Ridglan Farms has denied the allegations.
On April 18, more than 1,000 activists descended on the property in an organized effort to enter and remove dogs. Hsiung and four co-defendants had been in custody since the weekend before appearing in court Tuesday.
He and four co-defendants – Melany Brieno, Aditya Aswani, Michelle Lunsky and Dean Wyrzykowski – are each charged with felony burglary as a party to a crime, a Class F felony carrying a maximum penalty of 12 years and six months in prison and a $25,000 fine.
Brieno, the only Wisconsin resident among the five who appeared before the judge on April 21, was released without having to post bond.
Aswani, Lunsky and Wyrzykowski were each held on $10,000 bail. As of the afternoon of April 21, only Wyrzykowski remained in custody, according to online jail logs.
Lunsky is accused of ramming through the facility’s front gate on April 18. She is expected to face an additional charge of second-degree recklessly endangering safety, which was not addressed at the hearing.
All five are barred from contacting each other, except to reach Hsiung about ongoing litigation. Each is also banned from the town of Blue Mounds and from contacting Ridglan Farms.
Hsiung’s bail was set at twice that of his co-defendants, largely due to his prior arrests at the same facility. A prosecutor described him as the central organizer of the April 18 effort, alleging he used a sledgehammer to breach a building and refused to stop when ordered by law enforcement.
He was arrested within minutes of arriving at the property, according to the Dane County Sheriff’s Office. A preliminary hearing for Hsiung is set for April 29.
The April 18 operation drew roughly 1,000 people and took place a day earlier than publicly announced in what organizers called “deliberate misdirection” to reduce police presence. It ended without any dogs being removed.
Law enforcement deployed tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets in response. Twenty-five people were arrested. All face potential felony conspiracy to commit burglary charges, the sheriff’s office said.
The attempted raid came about a month after an earlier March 15 operation, which Hsiung also led. In that incident, activists broke into the facility and removed 23 dogs, leading to 27 arrests. The sheriff’s office has since sought charges against 62 people from that operation.
Ridglan Farms agreed in a settlement last fall to surrender its state breeding license by July 1 after a special prosecutor determined the facility was performing eye procedures on dogs that violated state veterinary standards and constituted animal mistreatment. However, Ridglan can continue breeding beagles for its own internal research.
Ridglan Farms has denied any wrongdoing, saying its research leads to new vaccines and veterinary treatments for animals. In a previous statement, the company said the settlement was the result of a “thorough investigation” and accused Hsiung of “vigilantism because he did not personally agree with the results of the legal process.”
Hsiung spoke outside the Dane County jail shortly after his release, saying the police response caught him off guard.
“This is not just an issue of animal rights now,” he said. “This is a basic issue of human rights and democracy, and we’ll fight as hard as we can to ensure those rights are vindicated.”
Quinn Clark is a Public Investigator reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be emailed at QClark@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Animal rights activist banned from Dane County after beagle farm raid
Reporting by Quinn Clark, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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