WESTFIELD – The second defendant involved in a macabre Easter ‘prank’ had his day in court yesterday and received lighter penalties than his co-defendant had received in August.
Joshua A. Balise, 26, of 87 Cochran St., Chicopee, and Christopher R. McHugh, 25, of 78 Corona St., Springfield were each arraigned in Westfield District Court June 20 on five charges of disorderly conduct, three charges of vandalizing property and two charges of defacing property.
The charges stem from five severed rabbit heads which were found in mailboxes in the city on the Monday after Easter.
Police were told that day that two rabbit heads were found in mailboxes on Pinehurst and Willis streets and, after the gruesome finds were reported in The Westfield News and subsequently by many other news outlets, three more were reported.
The lead investigator, Det. Brian Freeman, reports that due to the publicity the case received, a witness identified two young men who had reportedly been seen with rabbit heads on Easter morning.
When Freeman spoke with the suspects, who were employed as contract delivery drivers for a Springfield newspaper, they told him that “a few days before Easter they took five dead rabbits from roads in Southwick and Granville and thought that it would be funny to cut the heads off and leave them for people to find on Easter.”
Freeman reports that initially Balise said that he hit the rabbits with his car but later both men claimed to have found the dead rabbits on the side of the road.
McHugh said that he rook the rabbits home and cut their heads off and then brought them to Westfield on Easter morning and the two men left them in random mailboxes as they delivered their Springfield newspapers.
In August, McHugh appeared before Judge Philip A. Contant and pleaded guilty to two charges of disorderly conduct and two charges of defacing property. Three charges of vandalizing property and three charges of disorderly conduct were not prosecuted.
His attorney, Dean Goldblatt, recommended fines totaling $500 but Contant also imposed surfines which brought his total penalty to $625. He was also assessed $50.
Balise appeared before Judge Thomas H. Estes yesterday and was allowed to submit to facts sufficient to warrant guilty findings for two charges of disorderly conduct and two charges of defacing property. Three charges of vandalizing property and three charges of disorderly conduct were not prosecuted.
The charges were continued without a finding with probation for one year. He was assessed $50.
In his report to the court, Freeman expressed serious reservations regarding the defendants’ claim that the rabbits were found dead on the side of the road.
He wrote that he had surveyed “numerous officers who have worked overnight shifts for years, officers who are experienced hunters” and went on to state “I believe that it is not plausible that someone could find five dead rabbits on the side of the road in a few hours. It is also not believable that someone could even hit five rabbits with a car on purpose in the short time period” because “when they are in the roads they are so fast that they are hardly ever hit by cars.”
He also wrote that the rabbit head recovered “was not squished nor did it show evidence of the body of the rabbit being run over as it would be if it had been hit by a car.”
He reports that “the consensus of the officers I have spoken with about this is that the suspects killed these animals on purpose with the intent of using these animal in their ‘prank’. The killing of these animals and then their decapitation does not fit the Cruelty to Animals law or any other law.”
