Shasta County to pay $300,000 after deputies seize girl's goat for slaughter

After deputies took her pet goat to be butchered, girl wins $300,000 from Shasta County

Jessica Long filed a lawsuit against Shasta County Fair District and count

Nov. 1, 2024 4:21 PM PT

A 9-year-old girl who fell in love with the goat she raised for the Shasta District Fair was heartbroken when deputies, wielding a search warrant, confiscated the furry livestock, taking him away to be butchered.

Two years after the scandal erupted, Shasta County has agreed to pay $300,000 to the girl’s family to settle the legal dispute over the floppy-eared brown-and-white goat named Cedar.

The young girl had raised the goat for the 2022 fair, as part of a program intended to teach youngsters how to care for farm animals. But when it came time to sell Cedar and turn him over to be butchered, Jessica Long’s 9-year-old daughter couldn’t do it.

Long took the goat away from the fair, offered to pay for the costs, and pleaded with fair officials to let her daughter keep Cedar. Instead, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office deployed deputies, search warrant in hand, to drive hundreds of miles across Northern California to find and take the goat from Billy’s Mini Farm, where Long had taken him until the dispute was resolved.

It is not clear who contacted and instructed the sheriff’s office to get involved.

The case caused an uproar and, in a federal lawsuit, Long and her daughter alleged deputies wrongfully took out a search warrant, seized Cedar, and turned the animal over to fair officials. Attorneys also accused county and fair officials of using law enforcement to intervene in what they said was a legal civil dispute over who owned the goat.

Cedar, who was bought at the county fair for $902, was butchered, but it remains unclear who did it.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd approved the settlement that requires Shasta County to pay $300,000 to Long and her daughter to settle the federal suit out of court.

“Unfortunately, this litigation cannot bring Cedar home,” said Vanessa Shakib, an attorney representing Long. “But the $300,000 settlement with the County of Shasta and Shasta County Sheriff’s Office is the first step forward.”

The settlement brings about a partial end to what has been two years of litigation between Long and Shasta County and fair officials.

During the last two years, Shakib said fair and county officials have engaged in “obstructionist discovery tactics” to avoid answering key questions about happened to the goat, and what role officials played in seizing and destroying the animal.

“Years later this case still has several unanswered questions,” she said.

After two years of reviewing texts, emails, phone records and depositions, Shakib said county and fair officials have yet to make clear who butchered Cedar, what happened to his meat and who got sheriff deputies involved in the dispute.

Text messages uncovered during the federal lawsuit suggest that fair officials wanted to keep secret what happened to Cedar and who was involved.

“Kathy said ok but no one needs to know about this,” B.J. Macfarlane, livestock manager for the Shasta Fair Assn., wrote in a text message on July 22, 2022, to Shasta Fair Chief Executive Melanie Silva. In the message, he referenced Kathie Muse, a volunteer for the 4-H program and an organizer for the county’s barbecue. “U me and Kathy are only ones. It got killed and donated to non profit if anyone asks.”

“We are a non profit 😳🤣🤣🤣,” Silva responded.

Long’s attorneys have argued in court that finding out who killed Cedar, and who contacted law enforcement, is key to their case. Long and her attorney reached out before the goat was butchered and told sheriff, fair and county officials they were disputing ownership of the goat.

Still, someone decided to order that Cedar be seized and killed despite knowing a lawsuit was incoming, Shakib said.

County officials deny any wrongdoing.

“The County did nothing wrong, but we recognize the risk and cost involved in going to trial, and so we agreed to settle the case,” Christopher Pisano, an attorney for Shasta County, said in an email. “We are happy to be moving on and putting this case behind us.”

A spokesperson for Shasta County did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Silva, chief executive of the Shasta District Fair, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite the partial settlement with Shasta County and the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, the lawsuit is still ongoing. Long and her daughter still have claims against Shasta District Fair employees and a 4-H volunteer.

Shakib said attorneys are still reviewing discovery, including phone records, to try to find out what happened to Cedar.