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Fortuna animal activist Jennifer Raymond last night filed a formal complaint with the California Attorney General’s Office, asking the state to step in and take a series of actions aimed at protecting the remaining animals at Miranda’s Rescue and preventing founder Shannon Miranda from diverting funds he allegedly obtained through fraud.

Specifically, Raymond is asking Attorney General Rob Bonta to:

• ask the court to appoint a receiver to care for the remaining animals on the property and oversee their adoptions, arguing, “These animals are currently in real danger”;
• petition the court to dissolve Miranda’s Rescue as a nonprofit organization on the grounds that “its assets have been and continue to be misapplied and wasted, and that the corporation has been conducted in a manner substantially inconsistent with its charitable purposes”;
• assign that receiver to “secure and redirect as necessary any remaining charitable assets to protect creditors defrauded by Miranda’s Rescue and Mr. Miranda”;
• seek the removal of Miranda as an officer, director and trustee of the organization; and
• seize and account for any assets diverted for Miranda’s personal benefit.

Raymond said she really has just one goal.

“I want to get the animals out of there,” she said when reached by phone this afternoon. “Throughout this process, [Humboldt County Sheriff William] Honsal has continually said the animals are Shannon’s property, and they will remain his property.”

Honsal has said that, like everyone, Miranda must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and California law allows dog owners to humanely euthanize their own pets. Staff from his office’s animal control division are being allowed to inspect Miranda’s Rescue three times per week as the investigation continues.

As Raymond reflected on the situation, she realized that the dogs had been surrendered to Miranda’s Rescue, a purported no-kill animal sanctuary, rather than to Miranda personally. 

“And one of the things that you have to put into your articles of incorporation when you form a nonprofit corporation is that any property that exists when the nonprofit closes down must go to another nonprofit organization,” Raymond said. “And I thought, okay, in California, animals are considered property. These animals were surrendered to this nonprofit. If we could get the nonprofit shut down, the animals would have to go to another nonprofit.”

She continued: “I only really resorted to this after trying everything else — I mean, talking with the sheriff, trying to get the planning department to shut him down to get the animals out of there — and nothing has worked.”

The complaint, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, was filed on Raymond’s behalf by attorneys with the SoCal firm Advancing Law for Animals. Raymond and fellow Fortuna animal activist Jenna Moore kickstarted the current criminal investigation into Miranda’s Rescue in late April when they dug up the bodies of eight freshly buried dogs from a field maintained by Miranda.

Four months later, Miranda has yet to be arrested or charged with any crimes despite an extensive multi-agency criminal investigation that includes the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, the Attorney General Bonta’s Office and other state and federal agencies.

The Outpost reached Advancing Law for Animals Co-Founder and Co-Director Ryan Gordon by phone earlier this afternoon.

”The bottom line is it’s unbelievable that law enforcement found a mass graveyard onsite and yet they still have animals on the property,” he said. “We want the Attorney General to step in and basically throw the book at [Miranda]. We know that he’s taken in hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, and hundreds of animals are not accounted for. None of this adds up, and we’re genuinely concerned.”

A letter accompanying the complaint notes that law enforcement agencies have excavated the remains of at least 138 dogs that Miranda “seemingly shot in the head and then buried as part of his fraudulent rescue and money-making scheme.” The letter also cites public records showing that more than 700 dogs surrendered to Miranda’s Rescue remain unaccounted for.

The Humboldt County Planning and Building Department recently suspended Miranda’s Rescue’s conditional use permit, which means none of the animals remaining on the property can be adopted out until permit violations are resolved.

Meanwhile, Miranda and husband Jim Oxborrow have placed the Las Vegas home they co-own on the market for $1.1 million. 

“It very much appears that [Miranda] used some of the money from animal surrender fees to purchase that house, or at least that’s very plausible,” Gordon said. “He should not be able to sell until that’s sorted out. And the rescue owes people a lot of money for fraud, or it appears that way.”

Gordon said a court-appointed receiver needs to take over “not only to protect the animals but also to preserve assets. That’s our goal.”

Raymond, who purchased a home on property right next to Miranda’s Rescue with the explicit purpose of spying on the operation, said she is growing increasingly concerned for the wellbeing of the dogs and other animals still living there.

 “Those dogs have been locked in kennels now for over four months, and anyone who’s ever worked with dogs in a shelter environment knows that they begin going kennel crazy,” she said. “Most shelters enlist volunteers to come and walk with the dogs, play with the dogs and so forth. These dogs don’t get any of that. They are simply left sitting in the kennel day in and day out, potentially becoming less adoptable by the day.”

Messages sent to Miranda and his attorney, Allison Jackson, did not receive a reply by the time this post was published. We’ll update it if we hear back.

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DOCUMENT: Complaint to AG re: Miranda’s Rescue

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