The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry and the Louisiana Board of Animal Health have filed documents in court to limit the operations a well-known bail pen in the state. The two state agencies filed a petition for temporary restraining order, as well as a request for a preliminary and a permanent injunction against Gary Thompson and his son Jacob Thompson, both of the parish of Vernon, to stop buying and selling livestock.
A court date to hear the agencies' request is set for Aug. 17.
According to the petition, both Thompsons have been expressly prohibited from buying and selling livestock after Jacob Thompson's livestock dealer permit renewal was denied by the Board of Animal Health in 2018. The petition alleges Gary Thompson never held a livestock dealer permit, which is required in Louisiana. The two have ownership interests in Thompson Horse Lot, which has marketed horses on social media under various page names as being available for “bail” from a spot on a truck headed to Mexican slaughter facilities. The petition would also prevent anyone from acting as a livestock dealer on the Thompsons' behalf.
Tara Sanders, longtime partner of Jacob Thompson, told the Paulick Report the petition could not apply to her because she maintains residency in Oklahoma, where she said livestock dealer permits aren't required. Sanders is identified in the documents as the public face of the kill pen, and is well-known to film and advertise horses out of the Pitkin, La., facility.
“I personally have no use to defend myself, those horses wouldn't have an avenue away from slaughter without someone advertising them,” Sanders told the Paulick Report. “So I stand by what I do. And I do it for the horses.”
Sanders also maintained she “had nothing to do with that [petition].”
An attorney for Jacob Thompson did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
Court documents outline a history of law enforcement dealings with the Thompsons, including a discovery in 2019 by Livestock Brand Commission officers of malnourished horses and 20 to 25 dead animals, as well as a horse suspected of having strangles at a property owned by Gary Thompson that shares the address of Thompson Horse Lot. Jacob Thompson is alleged to have shipped horses into the state without appropriate paperwork, left deceased horses in a pit in the kill pen, and to have continued buying and selling animals after his application to renew his livestock dealer's permit was denied due to past violations.
The petition also details several sales of horses he purchased from Dominique's Livestock Market and resold within 30 days for prices around $1,000 or more – significantly higher than the typical price paid for horses by slaughterhouses, which is calculated per-pound and ranges from around $400 to $600 for a large horse.
Horses listed on the company's website Friday carried prices as high as $2,500.
Thompson's and other bail lots place a price and a shipping deadline on a horse, giving Facebook followers the option to purchase the horse outright for the named price or to crowdsource the funds to raise the bail and then find someone to take physical possession of the horse. For many, concern for the animal's welfare and the tight turnaround are chief motivators in a contribution or purchase.
Interviews with purchasers of horses from Thompson Horse Lot demonstrates most of the company's purchases come from social media users. One buyer stated she hadn't intended to purchase a mare but did so to keep her from shipping south.
“I don't know how or why it came through my newsfeed, but it's called Thompson's Livestock and they were showing horses and the particular mare that I ended up buying, I seen them riding her and she looked so pathetic I offered to put up half her bail hoping that someone else would cough up the other half and get her out of there,” said an unidentified purchaser in interviews with investigators. “But nobody did and that was June 16 and a few days later, I paid her full bail because they were threatening to ship her and I didn't want to see that happen so I paid the rest of her bail and she became my horse.”
Some critics have questioned whether horses sold via Thompson's Horse Lot as bail prospects were ever in real danger of going to slaughter, given the high prices attainable for them online. Sanders maintains that while Jacob Thompson does not have a contract with a slaughterhouse himself, he supplies other dealers who do and horses are guaranteed to ship if not bailed. Others point out that the kill pen bail business serves to fund the purchase of more animals to be sent into the slaughter pipeline.
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