I have set up a legal defense fund for one of our own, who was served unjustly with a restraining order by a well known bad business owner. We have an initial meeting with a lawyer set up for him Weds, but are asking for help to cover any of his legal costs, as even 5 bucks goes a long way for a young man who also just lost his job.

One of our members, Brandon Cross posted anonymously last week about concerns about Horseplay farms. He did attempt to go back and edit the post with his name, but FB does not allow that. As a result of his ONE post, she fired him and she filed a restraining order against him for “numerous posts on Wilmington Equestrians defaming my business.”

By numerous, there is one.

Quite frankly, I’m shocked and appalled that a convicted felon who embezzled over $160k would think that ONE post of a concerned contracted employee would be defamation. The same embezzler that has filings on e courts back to 1995 on scamming people for money and not paying her bills, has the audacity to use this intimidation technique on a young man new to the industry.

Her ”ask” is also that he stop contacting his staff, which is actually hilarious, as they are the ones that were contacting him repeatedly. Brandon took our advice and stopped responding to them the day she became angry with him, but that did not stop them from sending him repeated messages (yes, even to this day).

After he was terminated, he was told to remove his horse within 5 days, and she told him he was not able to go on property to see his horse without a police present. As a result, we were able to help him removed his horse in less than 24 hours, and transporter even gave them a courtesy notice of pick up when they would be arriving. The transporter did inform me that there were concerns consistent with Brandons allegations of less than proper care. On the feed board it appeared that the horse was given ¼ scoop (1.6 lbs) of feed per day, and confirmed with the facility that this was indeed what the horse was being feed, which is not consistent with recommended feeding instructions.

An actual restraining order has HUGE implications on a young mans future , and may hinder him being able to get work, sign an apartment lease, get a handgun, or more. All punishment she wants to give him for telling the truth about her business. In those comments there were MULTIPLE people expressing the same concerns about financials and mismanagement – and I will say it again louder for the people in the back – if you are seeing MULTIPLE people post the same concerns, maybe there is an actual problem, and any owner with common sense would do some self reflection, not threaten a young man.

Were asking folks to pass the hat and add $5 to help support a young man new to the industry that had the courage to speak up about his concerns on a public forum, and to stand up to what is a blatant attempt to intimidate our horse community to not share our concerns when folks engage in wrongdoing. If there are any additional funds past his legal fees, we will be putting it towards his new board bill to help bridge him until he secures additional employment