A Prosser area woman has been charged after at least six more dogs were brought onto her troubled property since Benton County settled a $1.6 million dog attack claim.
She is also facing a civil lawsuit by the victims and a resident living in an RV on the property is facing a slew of felony charges.
Donna Faye Ziegler was charged with illegally running a kennel after years of code enforcement tickets, dangerous dog declarations, arrests on her property for stolen goods and repeated dog attacks.
There were only three dogs left on her property in December when Benton County settled the claim with neighbors who were seriously injured by a pack of pit bulls from her Old Inland Empire Highway property.
By May there were at least nine dogs on the property and they were again trying to attack neighbors, according to court documents.
Frequent dog attacks
Benton County code enforcement has been ticketing Ziegler since 2019 about the number of dogs on the property, as well as rundown RVs with people illegally living in them and unsightly debris. At one point local rescue groups helped Benton County remove up to 50 dogs from the property.
But soon after that, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend moved in, bringing with them a pack of pit bulls that began terrorizing the neighborhood, attacking animals and chasing neighbors.
It came to a head in April 2022 when Christin Gregerson and her then 15-year-old son Hunter were attacked in their front yard. Their injuries were so severe that doctors thought they might have to amputate Christin's arm.
As was often the case at the property, residents hid or took the dogs away before law enforcement could arrive. Only three of the dogs were removed at that time and it took more than a year before the remaining pit bulls were removed after separate calls of near attacks.
Criminal charges against Ziegler's daughter Melanie Daniels and Darrell Wynn were dropped after they both died before the cases went to trial.
Earlier this month a resident living in one of the RVs was arrested for threatening to shoot a neighbor after his dog got loose and tried to attack the neighbor on his own property.
Wesley Adam McCoy, 37, remains in the Benton County jail on suspicion of four felony counts of felon in possession of a firearm and one misdemeanor count of using a weapon to threaten or intimidate, according to jail records.
New charges
New court documents show that this was actually at least the third since December that deputies or code enforcement had been to the property.
Jeff Aultman, Benton County's assistant chief deputy prosecutor, told the Herald in an email that a warrant has been issued for Ziegler after she failed to appear in court on charges related to a March incident.
Aultman couldn't comment on specifics in the ongoing case, but said the county is limited in what type of penalties they can levy. The county has repeatedly ticketed Ziegler for code enforcement violations and executed search warrants and made arrests when deputies have spotted suspected stolen property.
Ziegler was issued a new warning in February about the number of dogs on the property, and then when two pit bulls got loose a month later and were being aggressive toward neighbors and trying to attack their animals, the county was able to take action.
"The county is as frustrated as others in the community with this property owner's repeated violations," Aultman said in the email.
Ziegler was charged with illegally operating a kennel, which also covers a property owner having more than four dogs without a permit. Deputies found at least nine dogs were on the property at that point — the two running loose, three in an RV and four in the house.
Ziegler could face jail time and fines for both the illegal kennel charge and failure to appear.
The county cannot place a lien on the property for criminal fines, only for restitution. That means any victim's restitution the Gregersons might have won from the charges against Daniels and Wynn could have forced a property sale, but any fines Benton County levies against Ziegler could not.
While a civil lawsuit in Washington cannot take someone's home, a large enough award for damages to the Gregerson's could trigger a bank sale for part of the settlement.
___
(c)2024 Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Wash.)
Visit Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Wash.) at www.tri-cityherald.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
