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Delays in animal abuse case

Pleas in a high profile animal abuse case have been delayed again pending a judge's decision on a breach of conditional sentence charge.

Pleas in a high profile animal abuse case have been delayed again pending a judge's decision on a breach of conditional sentence charge.

Walter Goba is the Manitoba man who was convicted in Winnipeg of animal cruelty in April of this year on 2010 charges related to 25 dogs and 18 horses that were seized in various states of distress from the man's property near Swan River. In December 2013, while that case was winding through the Manitoba court system, the Saskatchewan SPCA responded to a complaint of possible animal abuse on Goba's property near Willowbrook, approximately 20 kilometres west of Yorkton.

Goba had been scheduled to appear in Yorkton court November 7 to make a plea on two Criminal Code charges each of causing unnecessary suffering and causing damage or injury and two provincial charges of causing distress under the Animal Protection Act.

Goba pleaded guilty at the end of September to the breach charge of violating the schedule clause of his six-month conditional sentence, but Judge Patrick Reis was not ready to issue a decision due to personal matters.

Reis adjourned the decision to November 28. In light of the adjournment, defence attorney Jonathan Bodvarson, who appeared by phone, asked for and received an adjournment for his client's plea on the animal cruelty charges.

The court also did a little housekeeping on the case. Goba was also scheduled Friday for trial on a creating a public disturbance charge and to make a plea on another count of breach of conditional sentence. Prosecutor Darren Grindle issued a stay of proceedings on the public disturbance count and withdrew the second breach charge.

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