Yesterday was the first evidentiary hearing in our next Right to Rescue case, where four activists are facing felony charges and years in prison for rescuing two sick baby goats from a Whole Foods–supplying goat dairy in California’s Central Valley called Vera Goat Dairy. The defendants, Sally, Carla, Joe, and Taj, sat in the front row. Over 20 supporters packed the courtroom behind them. In defense of the animal rescuers were local attorneys Kevin Little and Carlos Navarrete, as well as Darius Fullmer with the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project. At the prosecutor's table was Deputy District Attorney Abigail Unruh and Sergeant Dakotah Fausnett, who can observe all proceedings despite being a witness because he is acting as the prosecution's deputy investigator.

The hearing was a preliminary hearing, a standard pretrial proceeding in felony cases where prosecutors try to convince a judge that there is enough evidence for the case to move forward as a felony trial. The bar for evidence at this stage is much lower than at trial itself; instead of needing to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” prosecutors only need to establish “probable cause.” It was our first chance to hear the prosecution's case against these compassionate rescuers. Once again, as in previous open rescue trials, the evidence presented came from the rescuers themselves, who have spoken to law enforcement openly about saving the sick goats, Phoebe and Celia, and why it was necessary.

The prosecution called three witnesses, all officers with the Kings County Sheriff's Office who all testified that they responded to the scene at Whole Foods' Vera Goat Dairy in Stratford on May 27, 2025 shortly after the rescue.  

The first witness was Deputy Tanner Chennault. He testified that he called the owner of Vera Goat Dairy, David Rivas, from the scene and asked multiple times whether he wanted to press charges if it was determined that a crime had been committed, and that Rivas said yes.

Chennault also testified that he spoke to assisting law enforcement who spoke to employees of the farm who said they saw subjects trespassing and taking goats. Defense attorneys successfully got this statement stricken because it was double hearsay.

During cross-examination, Chennault was asked whether he had told Mr. Rivas that he had “done nothing wrong.” Chennault responded sharply: “Mr. Rivas didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the owner.” When questioned about the animal cruelty the activists were protesting and speaking about, Chennault said, "I wasn't paying attention to their speeches. I was too busy investigating a crime." He confirmed this did not extend to looking into crimes of animal cruelty and had not done any investigation of Vera Goat Dairy since that day.

Defense attorneys also questioned Chennault about a conversation he had with Sergeant Dakotah Fausnett at the farm where Fausnett told him to “make sure it’s a fucking felony.” Chennault said he did not recall. He was also asked whether Fausnett had then looked at his chest and asked if his body camera was recording, prompting Chennault to mute his camera. Again, Chenault said he did not recall.

But when Sergeant Dakotah Fausnett himself took the stand as the next witness, he confirmed that he had in fact said, “Make sure it’s a fucking felony.”

Throughout his testimony, Fausnett displayed clear hostility toward animal rights activists and sympathy for the animal agriculture industry. The prosecutor attempted to explain away the muting of the body camera by asking him if profanity is against protocols and implying that the officers were trying to avoid recording profanity while on duty — an explanation that was not especially convincing in the courtroom.

He testified he was already familiar with DxE (Direct Action Everywhere) from his three years with the Rural Crimes Task Force in the past. In that role, he said he attended quarterly meetings at various places across California and in several meetings, it was brought up that DxE was disrupting day-to-day operations on farms and ranches.

On May 27, 2025, Fausnett said he saw some people in blue scrubs speaking to the rest of the 40-50 people gathered at Vera Goat Dairy that day. When the prosecutor asked if he could describe what they were speaking about, he said, "Truth be told ma'am, I wasn't paying too much attention." But he said it piqued his interest when they mentioned having seen the conditions on the farm with their own eyes.

He described how he arrested "the blue suit group" after they came to ask him to help the goats and one of them, Taj, explained that they had rescued two goats. He said he asked if "we" meant all of them and that everyone in "the blue suit group" nodded.

On cross-examination, when asked about how Taj said the goats were taken to sanctuary and if he ever confirmed specifically whether the people arrested took the goats from the farm or to sanctuary, Fausnett responded forcefully: "No sir. They took goats. I don't care where they took them. They took them." He also noted repeatedly that while activists see it as a rescue, he sees it as stealing.

Fausnett confirmed he never investigated the animal cruelty allegations nor referred them to anyone else, even though he was told about the dead animals on site. He defended the factory farm saying that you can go to any dairy, anywhere in the country, and there will be dead goats there. He said this is also true of facilities with chickens or horses, and he pointed out humans die too. He concluded: There are people at the morgue right now. It doesn't mean there are inhumane conditions.

There was some questioning about the specific number of goats allegedly taken from Vera Goat Dairy, since the facility claimed 3 were taken but activists had said 2. Fausnett was asked if he even knew if the farm had a way to keep track of its many goats and identify a missing goat, and he replied, "I don't know how they keep track of their animals."

The third witness was Deputy Emmanuel Diaz, a fluent Spanish speaker who spoke to a Spanish-speaking worker at Vera Goat Dairy on May 27th, and who later reviewed DxE social media videos as part of the investigation. He claimed that video he reviewed that day showed the subjects arrested that day taking three goats. He said the worker, Jaime Lopez, told him each goat was worth $150. He also described a second DxE video from after the arrests where activists said they rescued a total of five goats.

On cross-examination, he confirmed the initial video showed a pile of deceased goats and that the rescue in the video was of a mother goat and two babies. He claimed two goats were rescued the night prior and three the day of.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Jim Trevino found that there was probable cause to hold the defendants to answer on all three charges: felony grand theft, felony conspiracy, and misdemeanor trespass.

The next court date is June 3rd, where the defendants will be arraigned on their charges. After that, hopefully dates will be set for trial.

Go to RightToRescue.com to learn more about the case and sign the open letter urging Kings County District Attorney Sarah Hacker to prosecute animal cruelty, not animal rescue.