Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix is publicly defending a so-called animal rescuer facing jail time for stealing chickens from a Petaluma, California, slaughterhouse.
Phoenix, best known for starring in the 2019 “Joker” film, said Zoe Rosenberg’s charges over the June 2023 incident are “a moral failure” in a Monday statement released by the advocacy groups Direct Action Everywhere (DXE) and the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project. A jury convicted Rosenberg in October of felony conspiracy and misdemeanor crimes for a scheme against Petaluma Poultry that involved a fellow activist and fake uniforms, according to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office.
“Criminalizing people for rescuing suffering animals is a moral failure. Compassion is not a crime,” Phoenix said. “When individuals step in to save a life because the system has looked the other way, they should be supported — not prosecuted.”
Rosenberg admitted in court to using the chickens to make social media content for DXE that accused Petaluma Poultry of widespread animal abuse. Perdue Farms, which owns the slaughterhouse, denies the claim.
“We have to decide who we are as a society: one that protects the vulnerable, or one that punishes those who try,” Phoenix said. “I urge the Sonoma County District Attorney to prosecute the years of documented animal cruelty at Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse; not the people trying to stop it.”
Perdue Farms told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the trial made it clear who actually committed crimes.
“DxE is using celebrities to spread a false narrative to justify Ms. [Rosenberg’s] illegal activity,” a spokesperson said. “At Petaluma Poultry, animal care is at the heart of everything we do. Birds have room to roam, access to the outdoors and natural enrichments and are raised on a healthy, antibiotic-free diet.”
Rosenberg, a University of California, Berkeley student, was seen in footage captured by DXE taking four chickens from a truck bed at Petaluma Poultry while in protective gear, according to KQED. She also trespassed on the property multiple times and put GPS trackers on delivery vehicles. Rosenberg could face up to four and a half years in prison at her Dec. 3 sentencing hearing.
“Unfortunately, some activist groups continue to show a deliberate disregard for the law, believing that their personal cause justifies criminal conduct,” Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez, a left-leaning prosecutor, said in October after the verdict. “They have attempted to use the criminal justice system itself as a platform to gain attention and further their movement.”
“The break-in was a well-planned, deliberate breach of private property with the intent to steal — a criminal act that was deliberate, strategic, and bordering on corporate espionage or agro-terrorism,” the Perdue spokesperson told the DCNF.
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