SEATTLE –– An advocate of zoophilia — sex between humans and animals — who was arrested at his Discovery Bay home for allegedly violating court orders that he stay away from animals and the Internet has been sentenced to serve nine months in federal prison.
Douglas Spink, 43, was arrested March 4 by six U.S. marshals, three federal probation officers and four Jefferson County deputies at his home on Chicken Coop Road after authorities found out he was staying in a trailer elsewhere in Jefferson County.
On May 9, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez ordered Spink returned to prison for violating conditions of his federal probation from a 2005 conviction for smuggling 371 pounds of cocaine in his vehicle near Monroe.
Martinez ruled that Spink violated parole conditions by living at a place at which he was not registered, having two Internet-accessible laptop computers and boarding horses under an alias at a nearby property.
A charge he violated his probation by owning a dog was dropped.
Whatcom charge
Once out, he will be turned over to Whatcom County, where he faces criminal misdemeanor animal cruelty charges for allegedly running a bestiality ring on a farm that was shut down by law enforcement in Sumas, a small town on the Canadian border, in 2010.
One of the horses he was boarding had been taken away from him after the 2010 raid.
Spink was sent back to federal prison for nearly three years after the 2010 arrest.
The raid resulted in the deportation of British citizen Stephen Clarke after an animal cruelty conviction.
Spink was released from prison last year and moved to the Chicken Coop Road residence.
Court records say he soon began running bestiality websites and blogs.
Prosecutor’s filings detailed attempts they said Spink made to hide his Internet activities and make them untraceable and unrecoverable.
Jefferson County
Deputy Alex Mintz, Jefferson County animal control officer, said in March that Spink was living with a 1½-year-old Caucasian mountain dog named Bacca at Compass Rose Farm, despite having registered the Chicken Coop Road residence with his parole officer.
Mintz said Spink was wearing Bacca’s collar when he was arrested in March.
Deputies learned Spink was living on the Compass Rose Farm property after receiving a harassment complaint from the farm’s owner Feb. 23.
Ghengis
The owner said Andrew Johnston had been continually contacting the neighboring farm because his dog, a 5-year-old Kangal Boerboel cross named Ghengis, was missing.
Johnston said people at the farm had been feeding Ghengis and had cut a hole in the fence that separates the two properties.
Spink had moved out of a trailer he was staying in on the farm two days earlier, Mintz said at the time.
Mintz did not return phone calls Wednesday requesting comment about the investigation into Ghengis’ whereabouts.
Mintz said in March he feared the dog had been abducted into an animal sex trafficking network.
Spink pleaded guilty to the cocaine charge in 2005 and received a reduced sentence after agreeing to testify against others involved in a drug-smuggling network.
He received a three-year sentence as a reduction from the mandatory minimum 10-year term he was facing.
Long sentence
Federal prosecutors said Spink regularly disregarded his supervision requirements and urged Martinez to send him to prison for as long as possible, which the judge did.
“It is clear that Mr. Spink views the court-imposed conditions of supervision as nothing more than obstacles to be cleverly circumvented,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Masada wrote in court filings.
Masada wrote that Spink showed no remorse for violating his parole.
“With respect to the instant alleged violations, some level of contrition and/or acceptance of responsibility for his conduct could go a long way,” he said.
“Instead, as before, Mr. Spink responds with combativeness, anger, and accusations,” Masada wrote.
“His insistence on blaming others for the consequences of his own actions is bewildering and only serves as an aggravating factor in contemplating a suitable disposition.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz contributed to this report.