Faces 15 Years After Admitting 'Deep, Dark Secret'
May 10, 2000
By Valerie Kalfrin
SAN DIEGO (APBnews.com) -- A San Diego County jury has convicted a man of molesting three sheep, two of them fatally,
in an open-air pen last summer.
James Donald Ray, 39, was found guilty Monday of felony animal cruelty and misdemeanor animal sexual assault after a
weeklong trial, prosecutors said. The brown-haired, blue-eyed man broke down repeatedly while testifying about his
predilection for animals, also known as zoophilism or bestiality.
"It was always a deep, dark secret that he had," public defender Deborah Kirkwood told APBnews.com today. "He really
wants help. He's begging for help now that it's out in the open. He knows what he did was wrong."
Ray, a single San Diego County man who has no children, is scheduled to undergo a third psychiatric evaluation before
District Court Judge Patricia Cookson sentences him July 10, authorities said.
24 states ban sex with animals
The judge barred the media from releasing Ray's photograph, possibly out of concern for his safety in prison, said Gayle
Falkenthal, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
At least 24 states have laws prohibiting sexual activity with animals, according to the Humane Society of the United States in
Washington. Penalties range from misdemeanor sentences in 19 states to fines as high as $50,000 in Montana and sentences up
to 20 years in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Ray faces up to 15 years in prison, but only because he has six prior convictions on his record, such as auto theft. He could
have served seven years had he accepted a plea agreement, Kirkwood said, but even that punishment the attorney found
"excessive."
Ray, who is unemployed, has been in custody since last August, when investigators from the San Diego County Sheriff's
Department caught him trying to have sex with a ewe outside El Capitan High School in Lakeside. Two other sheep, part of
the school's agricultural program, had died of sexual assault a few weeks earlier, prompting a stakeout.
"There was a real concern this might escalate to the students, so we took it seriously. Obviously the jury did too," noted
Falkenthal.
Defense: Intent not malicious
Ray "conceded" the sexual assault, but his attorney added that she didn't believe his actions fell within the state's definition of
animal cruelty, which specifies intending to maim, mutilate, torture, wound or kill.
"His intent was to complete a sexual act with the sheep rather than harm or kill the sheep," Kirkwood said.
The Humane Society, which has targeted animal sexual abuse as part of its campaign against animal cruelty, disagrees with
this defense. Like child sexual abuse, animal sexual abuse is an activity in which one party cannot consent or refuse, the
agency said.
