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Lt. Jonathan Perok, a Prince William police spokesman said animals recovered from the farm were in good health but remain in “a pseudo-limbo stage.”
This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
Prince William County police euthanized approximately 200 chickens earlier this week due to poor health and contagious upper respiratory infections following the FBI’s Jan. 21 raid at Haymarket’s Rancho Los Cerritos farm that led to the arrests of the farm’s manager and owner on drug and gun trafficking charges.
Lt. Jonathan Perok, a Prince William police spokesman, told InsideNoVa numerous animals recovered from the farm — including ducks, turkeys, a llama, pigs and rabbits — were in good health but remain in “a pseudo-limbo stage.”
“As of right now, there’s a process in which, if we hold them for 30 days, they become our property, but we would have to wait that 30 days …,” Perok said. “There’s no one there to take custody of them, and we obviously cannot leave them on the property without adequate care — so they are in our custody for safekeeping.”
Perok added, “Arrangements are trying to be made to potentially return some of the animals if an authorized party can come forward to claim them and care for them. Otherwise, after the 30 days [and] under state law, by default, they will become our property.”
Perok emphasized the preexisting conditions behind the chickens’ eventual euthanasia.
“It’s important to clarify these chickens were not pets,” he said. “They were being raised for the purpose of meat processing, and so their their conditions are a little bit different than a domesticated animal would be. So these animals, they had some body composition issues and some just health issues related to that, and that’s a vast majority of why many of them had to be euthanized.”
As things stand, the remaining healthy animals appear to have avoided illness.
“They’re going to hopefully be OK now that they’ve been separated — and I don’t want to say quarantined, but they’re away from the birds that were showing symptoms,” Perok said.
Perok said federal investigators could not fully ensure the animals’ well-being.
“When the FBI conducted their investigation, they arrested folks from that location, and due to that, there was really no one there to care for these animals,” he said. “The FBI obviously does not have the means to care for them, and so we took custody of them for safekeeping and ensured that someone could continue to care for them while this process was going on with the FBI.”
The recovered animals have been transferred to the Prince William County Animal Services Center for immediate care.
The FBI’s investigation revolved around alleged drug and gun trafficking conspiracy for over a year, with significant activity at Rancho Los Cerritos farm. The investigation culminated in a Jan. 21 raid on the property and several arrests, according to criminal complaint affidavits filed in U.S. District Court.
The affidavits name several suspects arrested, including ranch manager Jorge Steve Zepeda Irias, Jorge Manuel Romero, Oscar Raquel Cuellar Macua, Evelyn Esmeralda Villatoro and Oscar Vladimir Padilla Portillo. A subsequent criminal complaint affidavit also charged Jenifer Icela Romero Fabian and ranch lessee Juan Francisco Enriquez Cerritos Sr.The investigation, dating back to 2024, centered on Zepeda, who served as the main seller of the illegal goods, including stolen handguns and “ghost guns” (privately manufactured firearms without serial numbers), as well as cocaine and fentanyl-laced pills known as “Perc 30s” to a confidential source, according to the affidavits.
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Zsana Hoskins
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