BF2S Forums Push for Florida bestiality law goes 'back to square one'

Local prosecutors are apparently in a bind: How do they charge a blind Tallahassee man who has been accused of having sex with his guide dog?

Florida, like many other states, has no bestiality statute - that is, a law specifically prohibiting sexual contact between humans and animals.

So Alan Yoder, 29, originally was charged with felony animal cruelty, but court records show that charge was dropped last Friday and replaced with a misdemeanor - disorderly conduct.

Yoder now is charged with a "breach of the peace, by engaging in sexual activity with a guide dog," according to a court document.

One of two prosecutors on the case, Assistant State Attorney Owen McCaul, did not return a call Thursday. The other, Assistant State Attorney Stephanie Usina, said she could not answer specific questions, including explaining why the charge was lowered to a misdemeanor.

Yoder, reached by telephone Thursday, declined to be interviewed. James D. Varnado, his attorney, said he has filed a not-guilty plea on his client's behalf but declined to discuss details of the case.

"However lurid the allegations may be, we should resist a rush to judgment," he said.

Here's what happened, according to Tallahassee police reports:

Yoder, who lives in a local apartment complex, last month asked a female acquaintance to join him in a sex act with the dog, a male yellow Labrador named "Lucky."

She demurred, but later told a friend about it. That person called a social worker, who called police.

Investigators spoke to Yoder on June 16, who admitted performing certain sex acts with the dog, even going into detail with them, but denied doing others. He was arrested and booked June 22, charged with animal cruelty.

An animal-control officer took the dog to Dr. Sondra Brown, a veterinarian at Northwood Animal Hospital, who could not determine whether the dog had been sexually abused.

Warren Goodwin, who recently retired after 30 years as an assistant prosecutor, said he could not recall a similar case in Leon County.

Annemarie Lucas, a New York-based special investigator for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said sexual contact with animals "probably happens more than it's actually reported."

Bestiality - illegal in New York state - is "just not a natural thing," she said. "Animals can't consent ... They're probably fearful and in physical pain. It's like any kind of abuse.

"It's a cowardly act," added Lucas, who also appears on "Animal Precinct," a program on the Animal Planet cable-television network. "It's a domination thing, something an animal would never instigate."

Stephanie Shain, spokeswoman for the Humane Society of the United States, said her organization takes a similar position.

"It's doing something to an animal that they have an inability to stop," Shain said.

Last year, an Ocala man pleaded no contest to felony animal cruelty after being charged with having sex with his then-fiancee's female Rottweiler, according to the Pet-Abuse.com Web site.

A judge withheld adjudication and ordered five years of probation and a psychological evaluation. He also prohibited the 27-year-old man from "owning pets of any kind while on probation and from having unsupervised contact with other people's pets," the site said.