Two people who were among the first charged under a then-new Kentucky animal cruelty law were sentenced Monday in Mason County Circuit Court.
Nolene Renee Horn, 44, of Bracken County and Christopher S. Jones, 50, of Mason County were indicted by a Mason County grand jury in June 2020 on two counts of sexual crimes against an animal, a Class D felony, and two counts of torture of a dog, a Class A misdemeanor.
Appearing before Circuit Judge Stockton Wood this week, the defendants were each sentenced to two years in prison on the charges. Those sentences were probated for five years, according to information from the office of Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s attorney general.
Both Horn and Jones entered guilty pleas to the charges during a November 2020 court appearance.
The case was originally investigated by the Maysville Police Department. The Boone County Sheriff’s office provided forensic support. After the investigation, the Attorney General’s Office of Special Prosecutions was appointed to handle the case. Assistant Attorney General Rewa Zakharia will prosecute the case on behalf of the commonwealth.
Evidence presented by the Office of Special Prosecutions led to what Cameron said is believed to be Kentucky’s first charge of bestiality since the passage of a 2019 law making sexual crimes against an animal a Class D felony.
Senate Bill 67, was unanimously passed by the General Assembly in 2019 and made sexual crimes against an animal a Class D felony. The new law took effect on June 27, 2019.
“This type of heinous and obscene crime cannot go unpunished,” Cameron said when the couple was indicted. “I am grateful for the Maysville Police Department’s diligent investigation of this case, and our Office of Special Prosecutions is pleased to assist Mason County by prosecuting the case on behalf of the commonwealth.”
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