$300 payment ends cruelty case

SANDPOINT — A cash payoff has been made to resolve an animal cruelty case which a Sandpoint veterinarian described as one of the most severe he’s seen in nearly 30 years of practice.

Scott Michael Thompson paid a $300 bond last month and the misdemeanor case against him was dismissed, court records indicate.

Thompson denied the horse at issue belonged to him and alleged somebody else abandoned the animal, according to court documents filed by his attorney, Dan Featherston.

The emaciated chestnut mare in a field off West Dufort Road attracted the attention of a Bonner County Sheriff’s deputy last spring and Thompson was charged with animal cruelty in June 2008.

Thompson, a 58-year-old from Sandpoint, never reported the horse as a stray, despite being asked about the animal on several occasions, police reports said. A lip tattoo identified the horse as a thoroughbred.

A vet who examined the horse noticed other horses on the property were digging in the wet dirt and eating it because the pond for their water was putrid, Dr. Bob Stoll said in a letter submitted to authorities.

Stoll stated in the letter that the 20-plus-year-old mare was “literally a skeleton with skin stretched over her.”

“This was the most emaciated horse that I have seen in twenty-seven years of practice,” Stoll said in the letter.