Four months after the discovery of 27 dead horses at a Clements ranch shook San Joaquin County residents, prosecutors have charged two people with 26 felonies for alleged animal cruelty and other crimes, the district attorney said Thursday.
Following the arrest of Jan Ann Johnson by San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office deputies Wednesday night, she was charged with 20 counts of animal cruelty in county court, a criminal complaint filed Wednesday shows.
Johnson also faces 17 misdemeanor counts of keeping an animal without proper care, three counts related to illegal firearm possession and one count of allowing premises to be used for cockfighting.
“All 37 (animal abuse) counts (…) refer to individual animals,” District Attorney Ron Freitas said at a press conference outside the DA’s office in downtown Stockton Thursday.
Arrested Wednesday afternoon, according to Sheriff Patrick Withrow, Justine Fitzhenry was also charged with three counts of animal abuse and a misdemeanor count of improper animal care, according to a separate criminal complaint filed Wednesday.
No evidence proving that Johnson or Fitzhenry committed the alleged abuse has yet been presented in court. It wasn’t immediately clear from a court case search who is representing each defendant.
The underlying case kicked off Jan. 22 with deputies’ grim discovery of the deceased horses and other animals lacking food and water while serving a search warrant at a ranch in Clements, an unincorporated community roughly 11 miles northeast of Lodi.
Around the time of the search, four horses and a bull from the ranch had to be euthanized, officials said. Oakdale Equine Rescue took in sixteen horses from the property in hopes they would survive, officials said.
The complaints filed Wednesday show that prosecutors believe numerous horses as well as a handful of donkeys, a mule and a cow were abused, in addition to the cockfighting.
While the January search focused on the Clements ranch, the current charges are linked to alleged abuse at two locations in Clements and one in Lodi, the complaints show. But all the charges are linked to alleged crimes on or around Jan. 22, the complaints show.
In a video statement posted on Facebook Thursday, Withrow said Johnson “appears to be the person in charge.” Deputies arrested her after they observed her call an ambulance, and followed it to the hospital, Withrow said. Officials believe she called the ambulance to avoid arrest, Withrow claimed.
An attorney for Johnson couldn’t immediately be identified for requests for comment.
Johnson was previously arrested following the January search, but no charges were filed at the time, according to DA’s Office spokesperson Erin Haight. During the search, officials realized that “this is more massive than the resources we have today,” she said.
In addition to the current case, Johnson is facing another felony case dating back to Nov. 2024, an online search of Superior Court cases showed.
The circumstances surrounding Fitzhenry’s arrest weren’t immediately clear. As of Thursday, officials weren’t sure what Johnson and Fitzhenry’s relationship was, Haight said. “Best we can tell (is) a business partner, (or) an employee-employer” relationship, she said.
At the press conference Thursday, the DA declined to give specifics about the animals’ conditions, saying the facts would be presented during the court case.
Stocktonia reporter Chris Woodyard contributed to this story.