Noel Guido-Silva

After a night of partying, Noel Guido-Silva and another ranch hand started racing their car and truck, chasing down a horse in a fenced pasture. Gentle Song was a 23-year-old mare owned by a 13-year-old girl. The truck knocked the horse into the path of the car, and she suffered a fatal head injury. Guido-Silva was found guilty by a jury of felony animal cruelty, felony vandalism, misdemeanor trespassing and misdemeanor hit-and-run driving. He was acquitted of felony conspiracy and intentionally killing a horse. He was sentenced to three years in prison and was to be deported after his time served. However, an appellate court, citing faulty jury instructions, overturned Guido-Silva’s cruelty and vandalism convictions, and prosecutors dropped the charges, rather than refilling them.

Six years later, in 2009, Guido-Silva was convicted of one count of felony Force with a Deadly Weapon (against a human victim). He was sentenced to six months in jail and three years formal probation with the conditions that he pay fines to the probation department, not possess a weapon, may be searched by an officer at anytime, and have no contact with the victim.