{"id":342607,"date":"2025-10-30T07:29:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T07:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/342607\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T07:29:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T07:29:18","slug":"jury-convicts-activist-who-took-chickens-from-poultry-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/342607\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury convicts activist who took chickens from poultry plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 A California animal rights activist who took four chickens from a major Perdue Farms poultry plant was found guilty Wednesday of felony conspiracy, trespassing and other charges and faces several years in jail.<\/p>\n

Zoe Rosenberg, 23, did not deny taking the animals from Petaluma Poultry but argued she wasn\u2019t breaking the law because she was rescuing the birds from a cruel situation. The trial lasted about seven weeks in Sonoma County, an agricultural area of Northern California.<\/p>\n

The Santa Rosa jury took less than a day to find Rosenberg guilty on all counts. The activist with Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, a Berkeley-based animal rights group, was on trial for two misdemeanor counts of trespassing, a misdemeanor count of tampering with a vehicle and a felony conspiracy charge.<\/p>\n

Rosenberg said she does not regret what she did. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will not apologize for taking sick, neglected animals to get medical care,\u201d Rosenberg said following her conviction. \u201cWhen we see cruelty and violence, we can choose to ignore it or to intervene and try to make the world a better place. I chose to intervene, and because I did, Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea are alive today. For that, I will never be sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group named the birds and placed them in an animal sanctuary.<\/p>\n

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Rosenberg walked out of court wearing an ankle monitor and briefly spoke to supporters, who were holding signs that read \u201cProsecute Petaluma Poultry\u201d and \u201cRight to Rescue.\u201d She told them she would immediately head to the Sonoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office and report animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go now and report Petaluma Poultry and ask them to please finally give justice to these animals,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Rosenberg\u2019s attorney, Chris Carraway, said the district attorney\u2019s office was ignoring criminal animal cruelty in Sonoma County factory farms and that he plans to appeal the verdict. <\/p>\n

\u201cSonoma County spent over six weeks and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to protect a multi-billion-dollar corporation from the rescue of four chickens worth less than $25,\u201d Carraway said in a statement. \u201cNo doubt, the District Attorney\u2019s office would never have spent a fraction of this time or money if the chickens had been dead in a supermarket meat case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenberg\u2019s sentencing is set for Dec. 3, when she faces a maximum jail sentence of 4 1\/2 years, Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez said. <\/p>\n

Rodriguez said in a statement the verdict affirms no one is above the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we respect everyone\u2019s right to free expression, it is unlawful to trespass, disrupt legitimate businesses, and endanger workers and animals in pursuit of a political or social agenda,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Petaluma Poultry has said that DxE is an extremist group that is intent on destroying the animal agriculture industry. The company says the animals were not mistreated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe jury\u2019s verdict makes it clear: personal beliefs don\u2019t justify breaking the law,\u201d Herb Frerichs, general counsel of Petaluma Poultry, said in a statement. \u201cDxE members admitted to planning and carrying out illegal acts \u2014 including break-ins, theft of private data, and stealing livestock \u2014 under the guise of activism and to gain publicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frerichs said the company supports the right to free speech and lawful protests, but this was not that.<\/p>\n

Rosenberg testified she disguised herself as a Petaluma Poultry worker using a fake badge and earpiece to take the birds, and then posted a video of her actions on social media. <\/p>\n

Petaluma Poultry is a subsidiary of Perdue Farms \u2014 one of the United States\u2019 largest poultry providers for major grocery chains.<\/p>\n

The co-founder of DxE was convicted two years ago for his role in factory farm protests in Petaluma. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This story\u2019s headline has been corrected to say the company name is spelled Perdue, not Purdue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 A California animal rights activist who took four chickens from a major Perdue Farms…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":342608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[24144,42339,276,168801,168800,57,168799,4228,12588,50,61,67,132,68,168798],"class_list":{"0":"post-342607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-animal-cruelty","10":"tag-animal-rights","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-carla-rodriguez","13":"tag-chris-carraway","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-herb-frerichs","16":"tag-indictments","17":"tag-juries","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-u-s-news","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-zoe-rosenberg"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115461945514218831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}