Mark Longo and Daniela Bittner, owners of beloved social media stars Peanut the squirrel and Fred the Raccoon, are suing New York State over their seizure and killing by authorities. Their attorney, Nora Constance Marino, joins the podcast today to tell us more about this case. In this podcast, Nora provides some background on what allegedly happened, possible missteps in how New York State and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation handled the issue, how the matter could've been easily resolved, where the case is now, and goals moving forward. Visit Nora online here: https://marinojustice.com/. Visit the Legal Action Network for Animals here: https://lanalawgroup.org/. Visit P'Nuts Freedom Farm here: https://www.pnutsfreedomfarm.com/. See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/. Transcript: Intro: Lindsey: Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I'm your host, Lindsey Busfield. While many personal injury lawyers exclusively represent car accidents and slip-and-fall cases, there is room in sub-practices to take on cases that stray from the traditional, advocating for justice beyond personal injury. Nora Marino has been actively working on a case that has taken social media by storm, the case of Peanut the squirrel. Marino joins us today to give us an update on the case and the constitutional issues surrounding it. Thank you so much for joining us today. Nora: Hi, my pleasure. Thank you. What happened to P'nut & Fred: Lindsey: So for listeners who haven't been closely following the Peanut case, can you give us some background and context on what happened? Nora: Sure. So my client, Mark Longo, and his wife, Daniella Bittner, originally it was Mark had rescued a squirrel when he was just a baby, literally a couple of inches long. His mother had been hit by a car in front of my client, and he rescued the baby, who would've clearly died had Mark not been there. And Mark ended up raising this squirrel, tried to release him, Peanut, and Peanut just did not do well out in the wild and wanted to be in the house. So Mark did what any compassionate person would do, I would hope, and provided shelter, food and a home for this animal. Him and his wife then actually opened up a sanctuary, where they now have 300 animals that are rescued animals that they are caring for, and they had a raccoon who had been delivered to them, a raccoon in need, an injured raccoon who they were caring for, and apparently the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation got word of Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon. Peanut actually was a social media sensation, so that's not surprising. But instead of handling this in a way that would've been reasonable, in my opinion, they handled it in a way that was very unreasonable. Technically, there are issues and questions about whether or not people can maintain, quote, "wild animals" in their residences and homes. We are really dissecting the law on that issue, when I say we, I mean my office, as to what constitutes a wild animal, what constitutes a companion animal. The law is always subject to interpretation, as we all know, how one person may read a statute, another person may read that statute differently, so there are going to be questions about that. But regardless of how the DEC interpreted those laws pertaining to wild animals versus companion animals, they went in and got a warrant to search Mark and Danielle's property, which they did, and in my opinion, it was a very unreasonable search. It was five hours. We don't know what information was provided to the judge who signed off on the warrant. We have made freedom of information requests to get that information, which so far have not been responded to. I'm assuming I'll get that information in discovery down the road,
Más
Menos
18 m
24 m
55 m
44 m
Menos de 1 minuto
34 m
30 m
43 m