Man arrested in animal-abuse case; 18 videos show Arkansas resident with horses, dogs, police say

TEXARKANA -- Miller County deputies arrested a Fouke man last week on 27 criminal charges stemming from what they said was sexual abuse of horses and dogs.

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Ryan Dylan McDonald, 38, was taken into custody when he appeared for a pretrial hearing in Miller County District Court on Monday on a misdemeanor bestiality charge from November.

McDonald was charged with 18 new felony counts of obscene films and nine misdemeanor counts of bestiality.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Sams said the felony counts involve videos he said were found on McDonald's cellphone when it was seized during his November arrest at a miniature horse farm in Genoa. McDonald admitted at the time that he had a video of himself on his phone "fornicating" with a miniature mare, according to an arrest affidavit.

A warrant to search the phone was acquired in November, and the phone was given to Arkansas State Police experts for a forensic analysis.

The felony warrants executed Monday involve 18 videos that McDonald is accused of sharing with others or uploading to the Internet. The misdemeanor charges involve nine videos of sex with horses and dogs that investigators do not believe were shared with others.

Sams said the videos depicting sex with horses were filmed outside, while the videos portraying sex with dogs were filmed in a hotel room. In some of the videos with dogs, it appears more than one person may be in the room, the prosecutor said.

"I just don't have the words to describe what we're seeing in these videos," Sams said. "And it's not just disturbing, it's criminal."

McDonald's bail was set at $25,000 during an initial appearance before a Miller County judge Tuesday.

McDonald had been free on a $2,000 bond on the November charges, which included criminal trespassing. McDonald had been banned from the miniature horse farm in July 2015.

He was originally arrested after a deputy driving south on Miller County Road 70 at about 1 a.m. Nov. 1 noticed a van parked in the woods on the west side of the road, according to police. The van appeared abandoned when the deputy approached it from the rear, where a back window was open. As the deputy walked toward the front of the van, he could see a man lying in the floor of the back seat, police said.

McDonald told deputies that he'd had a heated argument with his father and was just looking for a place to cool off and sleep, according to police.

After getting McDonald's consent, deputies searched the van and said they found plastic bags of whole corn inside a cooler. Deputies learned that McDonald had been banned from the miniature horse farm and asked him whether he used the corn to lure the horses. McDonald said he collected the grain from a deer feeder, then he screamed and became irate, according to police.

"McDonald later admitted he was there with the intention to have sexual intercourse with the miniature horses kept on the property," according to the arrest affidavit.

Metro on 08/14/2016

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