A judge’s ruling on June 11 reversed the prior order that allowed dog breeder Jennifer Siliski to sell the same animals that were removed during a raid on her Franklin “puppy mill.”Initially, at a May 24 hearing, Judge Lee Davies had ruled that Siliski would be allowed to sort, price, sell and keep the profits of the more than 200 animals that have been cared for by Williamson County Animal Control staff, volunteers and foster caregivers. However, on May 26, a motion to reconsider that ruling was jointly filed by the district and county attorneys’ offices.
Those offices also brought a civil suit tax fraud case to the judge’s attention, and pointed out that Siliski has never purchased a business license or paid taxes on “Hollybelle’s Maltese Inc.,” the breeding kennel at 2235 Bowman Road.
Davies did allude to that civil suit in the most recent hearing, and amended his ruling so that any money Siliski receives from the sale of the dogs will be placed into an escrow account until after she faces the 30 counts of animal cruelty charges at an Aug. 18 trial.
“If Ms. Siliski wanted to go forward with the agreement, the proceeds from the sales would be under the court’s control to be put in an interest-bearing account pending the outcome of this trial,” the judge said at the beginning of the hearing.
By the end of the 12-hour hearing, though, Siliski’s attorneys could not reach an agreement with the DA’s office about which dogs would come back at what time, how the prices would be determined or negotiated, and the location boundaries of where the dogs could be sold.
“Well, it seems to me that we can’t go forward with the dogs being sold at this point in time,” Davies said. “So they’ll just remain where they are pending the outcome of the trial unless the parties by agreement wish to let some of these dogs go.”
The judge did not make any changes to his ruling that allowed Siliski to keep her six house pet dogs, none of which showed any signs of abuse or neglect in January.
“Anybody who has a claim that it’s their dog ... there’s a dog that they’d bought or whatever that’s theirs, I will hear that claim upon the conclusion of the criminal case before any dogs are disposed of or transferred or sold to anybody,” Davies added. “And I’ll make sure that everybody who has a claimed interest has a chance to be heard before that dog is gone or transferred.”
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