Pet Store Manager Pleads Guilty, Convicted of Cruelty Following PETA Sting

Video Exposed Animals at Jurassic Pets Bashed to Death; Owners Still Face Dozens More Counts

For Immediate Release:
April 13, 2016

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Today, Brian James Kubic, a manager at Jurassic Pets LLC in Thornton, was convicted of cruelty to animals in Adams County Court. A PETA eyewitness exposé of the extreme suffering of hundreds of rats, mice, reptiles, hedgehogs, and other animals at Jurassic Pets prompted the Thornton Police Department to seize more than 100 animals from the pet store in December 2014 and charge Kubic with 38 counts of cruelty in March 2015. Kubic is scheduled to be sentenced on June 1 at 8:30 a.m. His parents, Jurassic Pets owners Kenneth Mark and Lynn Denise Kubic, still face a total of 59 cruelty-to-animals charges, with each punishable by up to 18 months in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000.

Video footage and photographs captured by PETA reveal that Jurassic Pets staff routinely denied animals water and attempted to kill domestic rats and mice by “whacking them against surfaces,” leaving some twitching and gasping for breath after the blows, and Lynn Kubic and other staff admitted to freezing rodents and reptiles alive. Brian Kubic instructed one PETA eyewitness that a weak and thin rat with severe injuries should be thrown to cats, adding, “It’s not like I care.”

“Although nothing can make up for the pain and fear that Brian Kubic inflicted on animals, we look to the court to show that animal abuse in the pursuit of profit will result in an order not to own or handle animals for years to come,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “Every time PETA looks into the pet trade, we find widespread suffering, which is why we urge people not to shop in stores that sell live animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—also documented egregious suffering at a second business owned by the Kubic family, the breeding facility Willards Rodent Factory in Adams County. Rats and mice at Willards were typically fed only monthly, and food became moldy, was contaminated with animals’ waste, or ran out. Animals were routinely denied veterinary care and euthanasia, with many found drowned in flooded tubs or dead and rotting in bins. PETA has called on the Adams County Sheriff’s Office to help the animals there.

Broadcast-quality video footage from PETA’s investigation is available here. For more information, please visit PETA.org or click here.