Texas County pig farm worker Alejo Peña pleaded to three counts of felony cruelty to animals stemming from a PETA undercover investigation videotape showing Peña, manager of the Seaboard Farms, Inc.-owned pig farm, mercilessly bludgeoning pigs with iron gate rods in three separate incidents. This is the first time in U.S. history that a farmer has pleaded to felony cruelty to animals for injuring and killing animals raised for food. On May 14, 2001, PETA submitted the video to Texas County District Attorney Donald E. Wood, whose office filed charges against Peña on August 31. Click here to read more.
Employees at Seaboard, North America’s third largest pork producer, were caught on video routinely throwing, beating, kicking, slamming against concrete floors, and bludgeoning animals with metal gate rods and hammers. Other pigs were left to die slow and agonizing deaths with severe injuries, illness, and lameness, often unable to reach food or water, without even a trace of veterinary care despite the fact that Peña was fully aware of their conditions.
In 1999, in North Carolina, the first-ever felony indictments for cruelty to animals on a factory farm in the U.S. were issued against 3 workers after a PETA investigation into a pig breeding facility called Belcross Farm. In that case, all three workers were convicted for their parts in the beating and bludgeoning of pigs, including the skinning of a sow who was still fully conscious.