Puppy Mill Owners Not Serving Time Case Has Suffered From Legal Missteps Since 1997 Conviction

Pend Oreille County authorities moved Tuesday to salvage a nine-month jail sentence against a Newport-area woman who was convicted in 1997 of animal cruelty in a grisly puppy mill that outraged animal lovers across the nation.

Jeanette Bergman and her husband, Swen, who was sentenced to three months of house arrest, still haven’t served a day of their sentences. Now, legal missteps make it questionable whether the Bergmans ever will serve time.

Authorities in 1997 seized 205 mastiffs, golden retrievers and other purebred dogs with problems ranging from lack of food and water to puss-oozing sores and frostbitten toes.

Deputy Prosecutor Tony Koures filed a pair of motions Tuesday designed to get the case moving again after months of inaction.

One motion, in District Court, asks that the Bergmans be ordered to begin serving their sentences immediately. A hearing on that issue is scheduled Jan. 27.

The other motion, in Superior Court, seeks dismissal of the couple’s appeal of their conviction in District Court.

Koures argues that District Court rules should have required the Bergmans to go to jail long ago because no order was ever filed to allow them to remain free pending appeal.

Without such a clock-stopping order, Koures worries that the court’s two-year jurisdiction over the Bergmans will expire July 3 on the second anniversary of their sentencing. When the court’s jurisdiction expires, so does any unserved jail term.

Defense attorney Charles Dorn said former District Court Judge Charles Baechler ordered the necessary “stay” orally, if not in writing. If the stay of sentence were not in place, Dorn said, Baechler could not have made the order he issued in December, setting conditions for the Bergmans’ release pending appeal.

Koures’ motion to dismiss the appeal is based on Dorn’s failure to meet a deadline for filing a legal brief, but Dorn contends the “notice of appeal” he filed is adequate.

Dorn and Koures agree that a potentially bigger problem is Baechler’s failure to give a written explanation for denying a defense motion to throw out all the evidence against the Bergmans on grounds that their kennel was searched improperly.

Without the judge’s “findings of fact” on the search issue, Dorn believes an appellate court will be forced to throw out the evidence and the case against the Bergmans will be gutted.

Neither Koures nor Dorn could say whether another judge could supply the necessary document, or whether Baechler could still produce it now that he is off the bench.

“It’s the strangest case I’ve ever seen in my life,” Dorn said.

Koures called it the most frustrating of his career.

Both attorneys agreed the appeal was hampered by the seven months Baechler took to file his reasons for convicting the Bergmans. Other factors include problems in transcribing the trial tape, the fact that Swen Bergman broke his back last summer, and protracted settlement discussions.

Koures said settlement discussions began last fall after the transcript problem and Swen Bergman’s broken back prompted him to set aside two motions to force the Bergmans to start serving their sentences. The settlement talks languished as authorities turned their attention to other crises, including an ongoing rape investigation against Baechler.

The judge resigned under pressure in November, and didn’t return the Bergman case file to the court office until Tuesday. Koures said he was frustrated in several attempts to view the file last year because Baechler was keeping it at home. The file was returned after The Spokesman-Review inquired about its location.