Snake breeders say they are falsely charged
By Mike Hasten •
mhasten@gannett.com • May 8,
2010
BATON ROUGE — The owners of High End Herps, a
constrictor breeding business near Oakdale, say
they have been wrongly accused of abusing
animals, and their home and snake-breeding
facilities were illegally searched.
David Beauchemin, 44, and his wife, Tawni
Beauchemin, 23, were arrested and booked into the
Allen Parish Jail in March, charged with 22 counts of
felony cruelty to animals and charges of obstruction
of justice and theft by fraud.
He was held in jail several days "because they kept
upping my bail to give them time to let more poop
pile up in the cages to make me look bad," said
Beauchemin, who also goes by the name Damon
Heynen. No court case has been scheduled.
Beauchemin says that since the early morning raid
on his facility included Allen Parish sheriff's
deputies, narcotics agents with a drug-sniffing dog
and Homeland Security officers, all with their guns
drawn, he believes the charges were "bogus" so the
sheriff's office could invade his property looking for
drugs.
"I think they came in here expecting a huge drug
bust but found nothing," he said. "They were
desperate to find something, so they came up with
the bogus animal abuse charges."
He said resisting arrest charges stemmed from his
requesting to examine the warrant. He said he was
not allowed to read it until after he was released
from jail.
Several attempts Friday to contact Allen Parish Chief
Deputy Grant Willis were unsuccessful.
Beauchemin said he has hired an attorney and is
considering filing suit against the sheriff's office
and other agencies that raided the two facilities
where he houses his snakes and the travel trailer
where he lives with his wife. Also on the property is
an old mobile home he said he was stripping to
convert to another snake area.
The search warrant used by officers specifies that
they were to look for and seize "'Xavier' a 6-year-old
Doberman Pincher, the property of Lyndsey Rainer."
The officers seized the dog and 22 boas that
exceeded the 12-foot limit for which permits are
required, as well as other dogs and cats.
Beauchemin said they improperly stored the seized
animals in an uninsulated trailer overnight where
three pregnant boas, one valued at $100,000, a dog
and a cat died when the temperature dropped to 37
degrees on March 21.
Rainer said she had rescued the Doberman and after
getting it neutered and its shots updated, kept it
awhile. She then put an ad on Craig's list offering to
give it away to a good home.
"A woman by the name of Jennie said she wanted to
get it for her husband, so I brought her my dog,"
Rainer said Friday. "I thought it was to be a
permanent home."
Tawni Beauchemin said Jennie is her nickname and,
"I didn't steal the dog. She gave him to me." She
provided several e-mail messages between her and
Rainer, who regularly checked on the Doberman and
provided tips on caring for him.
Rainer said she became curious several days later
when an ad appeared on Craig's list offering a blue
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Doberman for sale in Baton Rouge for $300. She
asked a friend to inquire and was sent photos that
she had taken in her home before giving the dog to
"Jennie."
"She lied to me to get my dog," Rainer said, "so I
filed a criminal complaint. I wanted him back. I
didn't know they had a snake farm."
Deputies used that complaint as grounds to secure
a warrant.
Tawni Beauchemin said Xavier was a friendly dog
except that it lunged at her husband's face, trying to
bite him. "He must have been abused by a man at
some time," she said, so they decided to give it away
and sell the kennel she had purchased.
After the raid on the property, Rainer got the dog
back but Beauchemin has yet to get back the snakes
that were seized and are being housed by the
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
He said that when he established his business in
2005, there was no state law requiring a permit for
snakes longer than 12 feet and he was not aware
that one had been adopted by the Legislature. The
permits are free.
Beauchemin said comments in a House committee
on Rep. Dorothy Sue Hill's bill requiring a license to
keep and breed dangerous snakes were "misleading.
We've never had mambas and cobras. We've never
had poisonous snakes. It was fear-mongering to
make the committee vote for the bill."
He said it also made his neighbors even angrier
about his operation.
As to comments that some snakes were kept in
plastic boxes, he said using sweater boxes with
holes drilled in them are "an industry standard" for
keeping baby and juvenile snakes. "And there's no w
ay any of my snakes could ever escape into the
wild." Responding to comments about neighbors
fearing that their pets were being fed to the snakes,
Beauchemin said he would never do that and that's
why he raises chickens, rabbits and rats. He said the
large packs of coyotes roaming the area are more
likely getting their pets.
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