Hit-and-run deaths of two Penngrove mini horses lead to misdemeanor charges

A grief-stricken Penngrove woman who lost two miniature horses to a hit-and-run driver last month says criminal proceedings in the case have brought her only more anguish and offer little prospect of justice.

Juanita Carrillo says she may as well have lost part of her family when her beloved horses, Big Red and Scout, were mowed down in their corral by a suspected drunken driver early on the morning of April 15.

But their value as living companions doesn’t translate into the language of law, where pets and livestock typically constitute personal property, Carrillo said.

The suspected driver, an Oakland man who claims not even to remember the crash, has been charged with three misdemeanors, including suspected drunken driving and hit-and-run with property damage - as if, Carrillo said, the horses for whom she harbored so much affection were mere objects, “no different from my fence.”

If convicted, defendant Ronald O. Rennert Jr., 39, faces at most one year in jail - actually two back-to-back, six-month terms, if he got the maximum, prosecutor Scott Uemura said. Alternatively, he could get probation and fines.

But California criminal law leaves few options for charging such incidents absent evidence of “malicious” or “intentional” abuse or neglect necessary to prove animal cruelty, which can be charged as a felony and, thus, warrant prison time.

“If it was animal cruelty, you have to have the required mental state. You have to intend to do something,” Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said.

Carrillo’s horses were struck and fatally injured in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, just minutes after 2 a.m., when the bars close.

She heard the catastrophic sounds of someone careening off Minnesota Avenue in front of her home, at a bend in the road a couple of miles south of Cotati.

She later discovered the motorist had crashed through three layers of fencing built from heavy boards and pushed or dragged Big Red with such force that he was left beyond the end of the corral, mangled and suffering, before whoever hit him took off. Both animals had broken legs, among other injuries, and were euthanized as soon as a vet could get there, though, to Carrillo, “it felt like forever.”

Amid the remnants of splintered fencing, CHP officers found several pieces of wreckage, including at least three with serial numbers identifying the car involved as a Honda Accord or CRV.

Rennert, who had been drinking in Cotati and was arrested for suspected drunken driving within a half-hour of the Penngrove crash, told authorities that he remembered nothing between leaving the bars and being pulled over in Petaluma, according to a CHP report on the incident. He did not even remember getting in his car.

Rennert said he wasn’t even aware there had been an accident until friends heard news accounts of his alleged involvement and starting calling him the next day, the report said.

In a brief interview last week, he said he was in Sonoma County because he and his girlfriend have a cabin in the area. He said that he had been drinking in Cotati and remembers “really, just nothing,” after that. “I don’t even remember leaving the Cotati Crawl,” he said.

But pieces missing from Rennert’s silver CRV matched those found at the scene of the hit-and-run.

Tufts of reddish animal hair also were found embedded in its front end.

Carrillo said about 15 supporters attended Rennert’s first court hearing May 5 and have written letters to the District Attorney’s Office complaining about how Rennert’s case has been charged. She said she expects a crowd when he’s back in court June 5.

What bothers her most, Carrillo said, is how awfully Big Red suffered, and how whoever struck him would have needed to punch the accelerator after hitting one line of fencing just to get through the other two.

But that same person would have needed sufficient control of his or her vehicle to negotiate a narrow space between where Red’s body was left and a parked tractor-trailer rig that escaped damage.

Leroy Moyer, founder and director of a Walnut Creek-based nonprofit called Voices for Pets, is following the case.

“From all signs, he didn’t even try to slow down,” Moyer said. “He just put his foot on the gas and left without stopping to give aid.”

In a letter to the District Attorney’s Office, Carrillo’s friend Mike Simi referenced the option to charge drunken driving cases involving great bodily injury as felonies under California law.

While in Rennert’s case, the lives were “not human, two large animals were killed,” Simi wrote. “Certainly, there is some justice that can be done and restitution be made.”

But Ravitch said animal cruelty is only one of many cases in criminal law where evidence of a defendant’s mental state and intent help determine what charges are filed.

“I think a great example is murder,” she said. “There are different elements to premeditated murder as opposed to accidental killing.”

Ravitch said she will meet with Carrillo next week to talk about the case.

“It’s an unfortunate situation,” Ravitch said. “I have pets. I can certainly understand the despair this woman feels, but I still have to follow the law.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.