Pair charged with abusing reptiles, rodents
The operators of a Lake Elsinore business thatspecialized in the captive breeding of reptiles and rodents for wholesaledistribution are each facing more than 100 animal cruelty charges for allegedlyabusing and killing the creatures, prosecutors announced today.
Mitchell Steven Behm, 54, of Coto de Caza, and David Delgado, 28, ofRialto were arrested and charged Friday in connection with acts of allegedcruelty against thousands of animals that were caged at Global Captive Breederson Third Street.
Behm is free on $50,000 bail; Delgado is being held in lieu of the sameamount at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.
Behm, the owner of Global Captive Breeders, is charged with 106 countsof animal cruelty. Delgado managed the now-shuttered facility and faces 117counts, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
Wildomar-based Animal Friends of the Valleys, a nonprofit that providesanimal control services for contracting cities throughout southwest RiversideCounty, initiated an investigation of Global Captive Breeders after receivinginformation that rodents, exotic snakes and other creatures were allegedly keptin appalling conditions, and in the case of the rats and mice, were beingtortured and killed.
The rodents were raised for reptile food.
A member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals got a jobworking at the site and kept a record of what allegedly transpired over a two-month span, according to the District Attorney’s office.
Delgado was observed “causing traumatic injury or death to numerousrodents,” district attorney’s spokesman John Hall alleged. Behm is accused ofbeing fully aware of what was happening, he said.
The city of Lake Elsinore ordered the business closed last Decemberafter Animal Friends of the Valleys conducted a search and seizure at the site,during which more than 15,000 rodents and 500 reptiles were found dead or hadto be euthanized.
