Karl Mogensen and Gretchen Mogensen – the former and current owners of Natural Bridge Zoo, respectively – were found guilty of violating a court order and received suspended jail sentences following a hearing in Rockbridge County Circuit Court last week.
A third individual, Sondra Scott, CEO of Two By Two 4U, an animal welfare activist group based in Missouri and who sat at the defense table during the trial to provide expertise to the legal team, was also charged with violating the court order, but her case was dismissed.
The charges against all three individuals relate to actions and comments made before, during, and after the move of Jeffrey the giraffe from the zoo last October.
The court order in question, dated Sept. 5, 2024, contained conditions that Karl and Debbie Mogensen, along with any caretakers for the giraffes, cooperate with and not interfere in the moving of the giraffes from the zoo. Senior Assistant Attorney General Michelle Welch presented evidence and called witnesses to present her case against all three defendants.
Her first witness, Special Agent Gabriel Spencer with the Virginia State Police, testified about a conversation he’d had with Karl Mogensen on the night of Oct. 2, 2024, the day before the team moved Jeffrey from the zoo.
Zoo
continued from page 1
Spencer testified that he called Mogensen after being made aware of threats Mogensen had made to shoot anyone who came on his property. Spencer testified that, when asked about the threats, Mogensen had said he hadn’t meant them seriously and that he wanted to scare transporters from coming to take the giraffes. He told Spencer that he wouldn’t hurt anyone, and then said he would shoot the veterinarians. When asked about weapons, Mogensen said he didn’t have any firearms, but did own a tranquilizer gun.
On cross-examination by Mogensen’s attorney Aaron Cook, Spencer, who had been present at the zoo on Oct. 3, testified that Mogensen was at the zoo, that he behaved appropriately and there were “no issues” with him that morning.
Anthony Anderson, one of the attorneys representing Gretchen Mogensen, asked about his client’s behavior on the morning of the move, and Spencer testified that she had been respectful and had agreed to stand where he told her to.
Welch next called former Rockbridge County Sheriff Steve Funkhouser to testify about a voicemail he’d received from Karl Mogensen on the morning of Oct. 3.
In the voicemail, Mogensen asked Funkhouser to run a license plate on a trailer, saying that someone was “stealing” the giraffes. Funkhouser testified that he had spoken to Mogensen many times – and even had his number saved in his phone – but that this was the first time Mogensen had asked him to run a license plate.
Welch’s third and final witness was Amy Taylor, an investigator with the attorney general’s office who was one of the investigators who went undercover at the zoo to document conditions of the animals prior to the raid in December of 2023. Taylor was also present on Oct. 3, 2024, for the moving of Jeffrey.
Taylor testified that on the morning of Oct. 3, she and the rest of the team found a large rock had been placed in front of the gate to the giraffes’ barn. Gretchen Mogensen claimed that the rock had been placed in front of the gate to prevent the giraffes from pushing it open, but Taylor testified that it had not been there during any of her previous inspections. The rock, she said, was large and required use of a forklift to move. She also testified that a small front-end loader had been parked across from the entrance to the barn with a wheel removed, which had also not been there during previous inspections.
“It made it a little more difficult, a little more odd to back the trailer up, but we were able to work around it,” she said.
Taylor also noted that a small Go-Pro camera had been mounted on the loader, facing the barn.
During the move, Gretchen Mogensen livestreamed the goings- on through her Facebook page, and several clips from the stream were played as evidence. In one, showing the moving team removing the rock from in front of the gate, Mogensen referred to it as “my rock.” At one point, she speculated that Jeffrey would “probably be euthanized,” and at other points alleged collusion between the animal law unit and Rockbridge County Circuit Court Judge Christopher Russell and said that she “totally think[s] that judge is corrupt.”
Mogensen also showed the license plate on the trailer that took Jeffrey, reading it out loud over the livestream, at one point asking viewers to get the number to Karl and Debbie Mogensen so they could call the local sheriff’s office and have them run it. During a clip taken from the end of the livestream, she showed the trailer’s license again and gave the name of the driver. She also read a license plate from one of the other vehicles over the livestream.
At one point during the stream, Mogensen thought she recognized one of the transport team as a different giraffe transporter and encouraged viewers who may have that individual’s phone number to “blow his phone up.” When it was later revealed that the person in question wasn’t who she thought it was, Mogensen commented, “At least [he] knows, don’t do it now.”
In the final set of clips from the livestream that were played, Mogensen said that the transport team would be moving Jeffrey south on Interstate 81 then to Interstate 77 to head to North Carolina. She also mentioned having an individual “that can follow them for the first several hours” and that the troopers said that was okay as long as they didn’t interfere with the team during the transport.
Anderson’s lone witness toward Mogensen’s defense was Sgt. Robert Black with the Virginia State Police, who was also at the zoo on Oct. 3 and had assigned a trooper to travel with the transport team as far as the North Carolina state line. Sgt. Black testified that he had not been made aware of any incidents involving individuals attempting to interfere with the transport team during the travels.
- For the case against Scott, Welch introduced several comments made both by her and the Two By Two 4U Facebook group on the livestream, including one that identified the driver of the trailer transporting Jeffrey and gave his home address.
Taylor testified that she had been made aware of incidents of harassment reported by the driver and his wife, and Welch argued that there was “a direct line” between Scott’s comments and the harassment. She also introduced into evidence several one-star reviews that Scott had left for facilities that are housing animals awarded to the state through this case, including the Georgia Safari Conservation Park which received Jeffery last October and the three female giraffes earlier this year.
Welch also played two videos Scott posted to the Two By Two 4U Facebook page. The first was from Oct. 4, 2024, celebrating that an emergency stay had been granted by the Virginia Court of Appeals, meaning the three remaining giraffes wouldn’t be moved right away. In it she says that “We’re not done,” and that it was “Time to double-down.” She also levied accusations of corruption against Judge Russell and said that he “needs to be held accountable,” before making similar accusations against Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares.
“These people believe an animal should be dead before it is owned,” she said.
In the second video, which was posted shortly after the stay was lifted on Oct. 31, Scott also accused the judges of the Virginia Appellate Court panel, who lifted the stay, of corruption, and suggested that test results revealing that Jeffrey had an intestinal parasite had been faked.
“This is the biggest case of racketeering I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said.
Sandra Nicks, Scott’s attorney, noted that Scott had not been present in Rockbridge County Circuit Court after the trial, was not in court on Sept. 5 when the order was handed down and that there was no evidence that she had been served with a copy of the court order to know what it contained. She also argued that, since Scott was not a respondent on the original case or a caretaker for the giraffes, the orders did not apply to her. - Judge Russell sentenced Karl Mogensen to 90 days and Gretchen Mogensen to 60 days in jail, all of which he suspended. He also levied fines against both -- $2,500 for Karl and $1,500 for Gretchen – suspending $500 of both fines. The suspension of the sentence and fine is dependent on the Mogensens being on good behavior and ceasing all harassment of those involved in the transport of the giraffes and other animals from the zoo.
Before he dismissed the charge against Scott, Judge Russell noted that her behavior was “a very poor reflection of her character” as well as “a very poor reflection on people who would employ her … and on people who would invite her to sit before this court,” adding that “those things will not be forgotten.” Despite his “strong feelings” about her behavior, he ruled that the state had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Scott had knowledge of the orders she was alleged to have violated.
A second contempt charge against Gretchen Mogensen is still pending and will be heard in a separate hearing. That charge revolves around two baby giraffes that belong to the state and were taken from the zoo earlier this year, shortly after they were born. During her testimony, Taylor noted that it is a violation of Virginia state code to transport baby giraffes without their mothers within seven weeks of being born. She also testified that the state still did not know where the baby giraffes had been moved to and that a criminal investigation was underway to locate them.
The hearing for that charge is scheduled for Sept. 24.
