EAST LANSING, Mich. — After the fourth and final auction of Matt Mercier’s horses, Mercier could be described as down, but not out.

“I sat there on Sunday and watched my life’s work being auctioned off,” Mercier said of the large auction on Nov. 4 at the Michigan State University Pavilion, which included horses from other states and even Canada. “They rode poor, old, crippled broodmares through the sale ring, because it brings them more money.”

Mercier’s 69 horses were seized earlier this year after reports that the animals looked underfed and that the ranch was in disarray. He and his business partner for the past 10 years, James Henderson Jr., were originally charged with misdemeanor animal abuse.

Later, the charge was upgraded to felony animal torture, which carries a possible four-year prison sentence.

A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 3, in which Jackson County prosecutors will try to introduce into evidence alleged animal abuse that occurred in the past, but where charges were never brought. Meanwhile, Mercier has started a website to tell his side of the story, and has gathered supporters. He and his supporters paint a picture of Jackson County Animal Control officers and Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Lamp as run amuck. One of Mercier’s claims is that Jackson County Animal Control seized the horses and moved to auction them off in order to raise money for a new animal shelter.

Chief Animal Control Officer Kimberlee Luce denied this, saying the horses were auctioned off in order to pay for expenses already incurred by the county to care for the horses.

One Mercier supporter, horse hobbyist Kathy Brown, purchased two of Mercier’s seized horses at auction on Sept. 15 in Napoleon, Mich.

The other auctions were in October, in Onsted, Mich., and Napoleon. Brown said Animal Control made her sign a statement saying she wouldn’t return the horses she bought to Mercier. She said she was going to ask her attorney if the document is legal. “Do I think Matt should have the horses back? Yeah,” she said.

As a horse owner, Brown is concerned about the precedent the horse seizures could set for anyone who owns horses for fun or profit. “I have high-dollar horses,” Brown said. “I am afraid they will come in and take everything I own.”

Dr. Robert Sray, a veterinarian in Jackson County for the past 29 years and an adjunct professor at MSU, looked at the horses at Mercier’s ranch in March before they were seized. He said although conditions could have been better, it was not a case of abuse, much less torture.

“The majority of horses were not in bad condition, considering the winter,” Sray said. “Three of the horses were very thin, but that’s not unusual after a long winter. There was good quality hay there. If you looked at the horses that day, there were horses standing next to bales of hay. The whole thing of them not being fed all winter is totally ridiculous. What I saw was not unusual.”

According to Sray, the condition of the horses did not improve under Animal Control’s care. He also said, early on – before the animals were taken off the ranch property – that Animal Control Officer Heather Wheaton would not allow Mercier to have an animal with a cut on one of its legs to be treated.

“If Matt’s guilty of torture, so are they,” he said. “My personal opinion is that weather conditions caused a lot of the problems. If Animal Control had worked with him for a month, they would have seen a tremendous difference.”

Animal Control did not include Sray’s assessment of the situation in the original police report on the Mercier ranch; why they didn’t isn’t clear. According to Sray, Jackson County Animal Control has a history of aggressively trying to seize horses from horse owners in the county.

Luce denied this, saying little except, “We approach all cases the same.”

Sray insists the county could have saved itself a lot of “money and embarrassment” if it had just worked with Mercier to improve conditions at his ranch.