Just two days after her guilty plea agreement on numerous animal ordinance violations, attorney Nancy Lord racked up two additional charges of animal neglect and animals running at large.
The latest charges, filed Feb 18, could land Lord behind bars for at least 30 months, according to Nye County Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Vieta-Kabell.
Nye County Sheriff’s deputies responded to Lord’s Pechstein Road residence on Feb 16, just before 12 p.m. after complaints of Lord’s animals again running at large in the area of Blagg and Pechstein Roads.
Efforts to bring Lord to justice may be delayed as the Pahrump Justice Court declined twice to issue an arrest warrant for the new charges.
Instead, she was issued a summons to appear in court on Mar. 7, to answer to the those charges.
“The justice court did not explain why they denied the first warrant,” Vieta-Kabell explained on Monday. “The position of the district attorney’s office is that a warrant should be issued. These are two new crimes and two new complaints. We did request that a warrant be issued based on her offense but the justice court denied the warrant.”
Vieta-Kabell noted the neglect allegations are based on livestock Lord owned.
Last week, one of two horses on the property died of unknown causes.
“The allegation is that a horse perished on the property,” he said. “I can’t speculate as to what the court will do, but the state will be requesting that Ms. Lord’s jail sentence in her previous cases be imposed.”
Additionally, several of Lord’s neighbors reported witnessing several of Lord’s dogs devouring the dead horse’s carcass.
Nye County Animal Control also responded to the residence to remove the horse’s remains.
Vieta-Kabell noted Lord’s saga with the animals and law enforcement has gone on long enough and wants Lord to be held accountable for her actions and inactions.
“I couldn’t even begin to estimate the amount of anguish and inconvenience the people in that neighborhood have suffered,” he said. “Combined with the amount of time that we spent working on the case in the prosecutor’s office, the amount of time that animal control and the sheriff’s office have put into investigating these calls, as well as the amount of time the court has put in by holding hearings on Ms. Lord. We’re hoping that the court puts an end to all of this and finds that she did violate the terms of her guilty plea agreement and imposes that sentence. We think this is going on long enough.”
A week ago today, Pahrump Justice Court Judge Margaret Whittaker accepted Lord ‘s guilty plea agreement and imposed a 30-month suspended sentence, to run consecutively if Lord fails to adhere to her end of the agreement during that hearing.
Following the hearing, Vieta-Kabell noted it was Lord’s final chance to comply with the law.
“Ms. Lord pleaded guilty and agrees to be sentenced to three months in jail on each count, which will run consecutively, but suspended,” Vieta-Kabell said. “She has 30 months of jail time hanging over her head and she also agreed to pay a fine of $500 for each count, which is a total of $5,000. She also agreed to reduce the number of animals that she keeps, down to zero. Normal people get to have dogs, but in Ms. Lord’s situation, this is much different. This will be in effect for two years.”
To be certain Lord complies with the plea agreement, Vieta-Kabell said regular status checks were included into the deal.
Additionally, Vieta-Kabell said he hopes to the court will assure Lord be brought to justice.
“We requested that they let us know as soon as possible and as of right now, they have not given us any indication as to whether or not they will issue the warrant on the second new criminal complaint. The state is hoping that the warrant will be issued on the second case that she has picked up since executing that guilty plea.”
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com