MONTGOMERY COUNTY — On Jan. 14, Animal Partisan filed a private citizen affidavit alleging that the Billenstien family Farms, LLC, committed criminal animal cruelty when one of its drivers crashed and flipped a semi truck, killing nearly half of the pigs on board.
Animal Partisan is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to ending the exploitation of animals on farms, in slaughterhouses, and in laboratories through legal advocacy.
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News Center 7 previously reported that in June 2024, a truck carrying nearly 180 to 200 pigs crashed on a highway ramp between State Route 49 and Interstate 70.
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Due to the crash, 80 to 100 pigs died along with the intense suffering of countless others.
The company driver for the truck was speeding, which contributed to the crash, according to the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s crash report.
The driver was charged with failure to maintain reasonable control of the vehicle.
Animal partisan researched the driver’s history and found dozens of traffic violations that spanned the last 25 years, according to a spokesperson.
The history that Animal Partisan found also included a similar crash that happened 20 years ago that led to the death of 16 pigs.
The affidavit is based on body camera footage that Animal Partisan obtained of the crash, which shows a bloody scene, and pigs can be heard wailing over the course of several hours, according to a spokesperson.
The affidavit was submitted using an avenue in Ohio law that allows a private citizen to directly seek the issuance of criminal charges from a judge.
The recent filing that is seeking criminal charges is the second legal action that Animal Partisan has taken in response to the 2024 crash.
In December, the organization filed a complaint with the Ohio Office of the Inspector General, seeking an investigation into alleged misconduct by the Ohio State Highway Patrol in response to the crash, along with a separate pig crash that occurred in 2023.
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