Charges dismissed after court diversion

A key provision for the pre-trial diversion granted to the former Newbern couple charged with animal cruelty in 2004 was apparently violated when 137 dogs were seized on Sunday from their Obion County home.

James William "Bud" Fair and his wife, Mary Joe Fair, were each charged with cruelty to animals on March 27, 2004. They entered a plea agreement to have an 11-month, 29-day unsupervised probation period. The Fairs were placed in pre-trial diversion that ended in July 2005, when the charges were dismissed.

Among the nine rules in the agreement, the Fairs were to forfeit all of the dogs except for "an apricot colored poodle, a French bull dog, and two Boston terriers," and they had to be spayed or neutered.

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