Digital Social Hour - How One Squirrel United a Nation Against Injustice | Mark Longo

Episode Date: December 8, 2024

🐿️ How One Squirrel United a Nation Against Injustice! 🇺🇸 Join Sean Kelly as he sits down with Mark Longo, the man behind the viral sensation Peanut the Squirrel. Discover the shocking truth behind a government raid that sparked nationwide outrage and united people across political lines. 😱 Mark shares his incredible journey from mechanical engineer to animal sanctuary owner, and how a beloved pet squirrel became the face of a movement against government overreach. Learn about the heartbreaking loss of Peanut and Fred, and the ongoing fight for justice that's capturing hearts worldwide. 💔 🎙️ Tune in for eye-opening revelations about: • The truth behind the controversial raid • How social media rallied support from unexpected places • The dark side of animal auctions and slaughterhouses • Mark's mission to save neglected farm animals • The challenges of crypto fundraising for a noble cause Don't miss this powerful conversation that'll make you question everything you thought you knew about animal rights and government authority. Hit that play button now and prepare to be moved! 🔥 Subscribe for more jaw-dropping stories and insider insights on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly. Join the conversation and be part of the change! 🚀 #JusticeForPeanut #AnimalRights #GovernmentOverreach #news #ctvnews #governmentoverreach #keepingitdutch #usnews CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 01:45 - The Raid 03:56 - Rabies Scare 05:20 - Peanut's Impact 06:54 - OnlyF*ns Scandal 10:28 - Bogus Search Warrant 12:45 - Frequency of Incidents 14:05 - Public Reaction 17:04 - OnlyF*ns Discussion 18:30 - Starting the Sanctuary 19:24 - Aftermath of Peanut's Death 22:06 - State's Inexperience 25:18 - Saving Animals from Auctions 27:13 - Animal Auctions Overview 29:20 - Moving Out Discussion 30:10 - How to Help Animals 31:30 - Peanut Coin Initiative 36:00 - Justice for Peanut 38:45 - Government Overreach Issues 40:30 - Supreme Court on Squirrel Case 43:20 - Supporting Freedom Farm 44:15 - Outro APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Mark Longo https://www.instagram.com/squirrel_dad_12 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook, Born in Vegas, gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions.

Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. You can't prevent early mornings. But you can help prevent certain HPV-related cancers with Gardasil 9. Approximately 75% of sexually active Canadians will get HPV in their lifetime. Gardasil 9 helps protect against certain cancers and diseases caused by certain HPV types. It does not treat HPV infections, cancers, and diseases, and may not protect everyone who gets vaccinated. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur.

If you're aged 18 to 45, talk to your healthcare professional or visit getg9.ca today. and it's surreal, you know? Nine people with weapons show up at your house for two small animals. You never have gotten in trouble before, you never, you know, been involved with any criminal activity, and now you're being treated like you're a drug dealer. All right guys, really excited for this one today to get Mark's side of the story, because the PR's been crazy on this, man.

Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it, Sean. It really, really means a lot. Absolutely. How did you feel seeing all those articles coming out? You know, it was, we didn't want this story to go away. You know, it was a tragedy.

It was government overreach. It was basically another day in the office for these guys. When they came here, we made sure that the world saw this and the work came together for it. And, you know, usually you kind of see the table of the shift, right? You always have the people that disagree and people that agree. When it came to this one, it was like a 95 to 5% or, and you know, you have the

biggest people around the world going, what the hell happened here? Right. So that was the biggest part of just trying to get this story out. You were uniting Democrats and Republicans, like everyone. Right. It was, that was the craziest part is the way this transpired and the timing of it was, it's like a movie. Yeah.

You know, it's three days before election and your government just comes in and it's surreal, you know, nine people with weapons show up at your house for two small animals. Crazy. You're like, you never have gotten in trouble before, you've never been involved with any criminal activity, and now you're being treated like you're a drug dealer. Oh, it's something I'll never forget. I bet. So nine people, which agency was that?

This was the DEC, the Department of Health, the Chemung County of New York City, New York State. There's a lot of agencies involved in this. It wasn't even just one. Jeez. They were all working together. They show up with a search warrant, right? Right. We did a 10-month investigation on the scrolling raccoon.

And was that before the search warrant? That was before the search warrant. Oh, so you were aware there was an investigation going on? I wasn't. Oh, you weren't? The more that this unfolded, the more people were like, oh, we saw DEC officers drive by your farm and take photos. And then it started to unravel.

And then they came out and made a statement saying they started this investigation in January. Wow. And you're like, they even came as far as the rate was the 30th. They came out on a statement on TV and said they were going to kill the animals on the 22nd. What? Eight days before the search and seizure, they came out and made a statement of the timeline of how things transpired and One of the agencies called the Department of Health to get the protocol on euthanasia

So it was just like this was a target man. This was this wasn't about two animals Yeah, this was an agenda and this was another day in the office for these guys. I does not so it was planned out Oh, yeah, you know really couldn't do much at that point. At that point, you know, five hours of being detained in your own house, you know, you're in the corner of your driveway, you're being asked if there's cameras in your house. My wife's German.

They asked her immigration status, as if that was relevant to anything. That is nuts. Did they take the camera footage? They, we didn't have cameras in the house and they weren't wearing body cams. Huh. So, you know, then you park me in the corner of my own house.

To the point where I asked to go to the bathroom. An officer took me to my own bathroom. Took apart the toilet before I went to the bathroom. You're here for a squirrel and a raccoon. Why are you inspecting my toilet before I take a leak? Wow. You know, there's so much to this story that the world didn't see. You know, and this is all about the justification of killing two animals.

But if you look at the bigger picture here, this is human rights, this is animal rights, and this is, you know, what needs to stop. This can't happen. And that's what our fight is all about now. Absolutely Yeah, they did that and then the coordinated media attack with the rabies stuff seemed to very planned out Oh, yeah, you know and it wasn't Okay, I don't mean to disrespect them at all You know, these are people that have families and stuff, but you got caught then you fabricated a story that was

Such a lie that people didn't even bat an eye when he said it. You know, you took two animals and you didn't even do your own data. Like New York state has its own data on rabies and you picked a squirrel who has never ever, squirrels never have had any case of rabies in the United States alone, let alone New York state. You know, and there's 35 cases of raccoons in the last, you know, almost 20 years. You know and there's 35 cases of raccoons in the last you know almost 20 years and He not was a

Famous squirrel like just something that could not live in his natural habitat right he I found him as a young young Squirrel he was five weeks old we rehabbed him we put him back outside He ended up getting attacked lost half his tail Him an indoor squirrel who's best friend was a cat like I had a Tom and Jerry in my house like it was the coolest thing in the planet and you know it was something it was like kick off an exciting football season with bet MGM an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League yard after yard down after down the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play.

And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit betmgm.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble

responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is an ad from BetterHelp. This holiday season, do something for a special person in your life. You. Give yourself the gift of better mental health.

BetterHelp online therapy connects you with a qualified therapist via phone, video, or live chat. It's convenient and affordable and can be done from the comfort of your own home. Having someone to talk to is truly a gift, especially during the holidays. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more and save 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com. The internet needs to see this, right? This wasn't like, you know, people call me the scroll dad.

If I walked up to you Sean and was like, my name is Mark, aka the scroll dad. You laugh at my face. Like this isn't like, oh, I'm flexing like some clout here. It's like you walked on the string, it's like, hey, scroll daddy. You know, it's not, it's not something to be, you know, I'm proud of Peanut, but I wasn't like sitting here trying to flaunt the scroll dad effect. It was just something cool to be in the background of a unique animal. Like a squirrel using a litter box and dressing up as cowboy. You know if that doesn't make you smile I don't know if you have a heart. I mean that was the whole premise of this entire thing. This whole social media thing was to just go hey you know this might be a unique animal might just

be a fluffy tree rat but you know everybody needs love and and this was a prime example of just love and joy in an animal and we loved sharing it You know kids loved him families loved him. We've had people travel the world to meet him Wow, like people from England travel to New York. He was world-renowned. Yep. He was deemed the world's most famous squirrel Like he did interviews from around the world. We've had news, you know, can't the documentaries about him He's been on peanut butter labels like the dude was more successful than me You know, and it was awesome. I took a backseat to something really cool

and I was just a proud person to be a part of it. And the best part about it was reading those comments, reading those DMs of how peanut changed our life. Wow, we had a person who was like, listen, I was a couple days away from ending myself and I came across your page and I was like, dude, here's my number. If you ever feel like that ever again, I'll send you whatever you need. Just, you know, you're not fighting alone.

Like there's a lot of us who have mental health. I have it. I have really bad anxiety. And I used animals to help combat that. You know, so it wasn't just a positive movement. It was, you know, if you need help, never be silent or we're here for you. So it had a lot of different effects on people. And that's what I loved about it the most. So when this hit, it was like, it wasn't like you walked in and your poor pet passed away, right? You had your own government who you

pay taxes to come in and cut their heads off and and you know come from a family that you know trauma doesn't happen to us you know you fight you go to work you provide for your family and you know they broke a soap bottle in my bathroom there's a stain from the soap and we had two professional cleaners come in couldn't get it out so walking in my bathroom and seeing that and I haven't even fixed my closet yet they tore apart my closet my wife's closet nothing else in the house Wow What do you think they were trying to find? So you know, as this story came out, you know, obviously it was never hiding my OnlyFans, you know, but you know, they tried to connect puzzle pieces. You know, this wasn't about

Peanut and Fred. This was a new guy on social media, has an OnlyFans, moves to a small town, 1800 people. And the question was, why? Well, why are you here? We tried our best to go, hey, listen, we want to start a community. We want to start a nonprofit. Squirrels live 15, 20 years. And this is an animal page, right?

This is not, I'm trying to be famous. I was like, I'm actually doing the counter opposite. I'm moving from New York City to a rural area so that I could just focus on being my family and animals. And I think that kind of just rubbed somebody the wrong way. Somebody who had pull, somebody who was local that might've had some connections into any agency and probably banded together with a couple other people

to file complaints. A lot of people were like, oh, it's anonymous calls from the internet. I think it might've been, but it's also not enough for a 10 month investigation. Right. So, you know, those are the questions we want. Will we ever get them? Probably not.

But it arose questions from everybody around the world. Yeah. Why did we use six figures of taxpayers' money for a 10 month investigation on a squirrel and raccoon? It's not living in, you know, an apartment in Manhattan. It's on a 350 acre farm. That's also being used for a nonprofit animal rescue. Yeah. You had a sanctuary, right? Right. So, you know, peanuts freedom farm that we moved up there. And that was my way of going,

this is his legacy is we're going to start something that's bigger than all of us, help more animals and bring the community together. So, you know, we're helping kids, families, and at the same time, we're helping animals. So we thought it would be perfect to do something like this in a small town. And this is what happened. Crazy. And a big thing the outlets were saying was it was illegal

to own the squirrel in that state, right? Right. And, you know, we had moved there a year prior and we were doing stuff with the organization, getting our permits and all that stuff. And it's like going to the DMV. You put in your application, you don't hear for three months. It's not you put this in, you get your paperwork

and call it quits. My wife and I took our tests. We put in our applications. We're waiting for them to receive it so then we can do our interview and do the proper steps. I know that common misconception here was we were just sitting here kind of doing nothing.

I heard like, so we feel like, well, they reached out to you so many times. Like, no, the only time they reached out to me was to intimidate me and tell me, you know, it's never allowed here. You know, we're not talking about moving an alligator from state to state. You know, I'm not harboring a bear. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey, no, too basic. Hi there. Still no.

What about, hello handsome. Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. It's literally will cut his tail off and he's a rat.

You know, so if you don't have the paperwork, it's a $200 fine. Jaywalking is a $200 fine. You don't get your house rated. You know, when you get pulled over on your cell phone, you appear in court, $250 fine. You don't get your house rated. You know when you get pulled over on your cell phone, but you appear in court $250 fine, you don't get your house rated. Mm-hmm, and That was the biggest thing here is why and it's sure as hell not the animal Yeah, that's nuts ratings a whole nother level and we were talking off-camera I'm not sure if you're allowed to say this but the search warrant was kind of bogus, right? Oh, yeah

You know, it's It's surreal like you can make a movie yeah. You know, it's... It's surreal. Like, you can make a movie off of this, and it's real life. You know, you bring nine people, six of which have web, and you detain a family with a search warrant that clearly states

you're here for a squirrel and a raccoon, you don't even have a docket number on your search warrant. You know, my lawyer couldn't even find it when she went to the courthouse. You know, and then you falsely detained me for five hours. You don't arrest me. You don't charge me with anything. You don't give me an appeal to court. I don't get a violation. I got nothing. Now what I got, I got the search warrant and I got two pieces of paper.

It was a chain of evidence. The squirrel and the raccoon. And then they confiscated a weapon that wasn't even mine. And they tried to forcibly make a weapon that wasn't even mine. And they tried to forcibly make me sign that it was my weapon. Whoa. They even wrote my name.

You know, like it says, I, you know, Mark Longo, this is my sole property, they wrote my name in there. And then they said, we need you to sign here and here. I said, I'm not signing that, because that's not my weapon. I had a co-signer on the farm, good friend of mine, he brought his rifle up, it's a farm. Again, we're not talking about an apartment in New York City, it's a 350 acre farm. We live in a farm town, everybody has a weapon. We're not out here, you know,

rallying up together. You know, there's bears, there's coyotes, we've got to protect our animals. Not a gun guy. So they started feeding me all this crap, I was like, I'll pull up Call of Duty. You tell me what part we're talking about in the guns I don't know the hell you're talking about man He was like you know this and this piece and that piece and this violates this and I was like I Don't listen. We'll go pull up God and and you can show me what what's wrong They wanted to charge you for the gun stuff. Oh, yeah, if you signed that they probably would have pursued the 100% You know and they still tried to pursue it and it got shut down really quickly You know and and the DA came out and told my my lawyer like he ain't touching us. Oh really?

Oh, yeah, but they're on your side the DA. Oh, yeah, oh nice Well cuz of the PR probably right and also because you know going back to search warrant There were multiple agencies on the search warrant some weren't even involved in the search in seizure whatsoever You know it was probably a template There was a probably already agencies on it and nobody deleted them. You know, like... That's so amateur.

That was the biggest thing here is how many times have they done this where this has been overlooked? Yeah, has anyone actually hit you up saying, yo, that happened to me too? Yeah, multiple cases from dogs to raccoons to... and we've been helping ever since this kind of, you know, hit the spotlight.

You know, there's a dog in California right now who's protecting his family. And from a repeat offender. And they're actually in court fighting to make sure that this dog doesn't get put down. Whoa. You know, like, when does this line get drawn? When are we going to stop complaining about, you know, money when we're spending it? You know, my area has a really bad homeless Issue why are we not helping?

Like there it's cold, you know, we're right below Buffalo. We're hitting you know, minus degrees very soon They need shelter. You know, they're they're starting fires under the bridge to keep warm They're actually melting the steel and damaging the bridges. Wow, that's DEC's authority. You know bridges are DEC's that's their main area. Why are we not helping them? We have a rabid coyote that bit three people already. We have a horse down the street that's so neglected they don't even bat an eye. They don't show up to these. And we were told oh every complaint it gets followed up by. Well then why aren't these list of 20 that I'm giving you right now ever followed up on? Crazy, you know a lot of corruption, right? It's just that's why I'm excited for doge. Yeah, you know, you know

And that was the biggest thing was this hit Everywhere it went worldwide. This wasn't like the state of New York knew about it. You have Elon Musk tweeting you have Presidents talking about it. You have a squirrel walk by The podium at Kamala's press release. You know, the world saw this. You know, and that was the surreal moment for me was, yeah, I lost my best buddy. You know, we did everything together. Breakfast, like, little TMI, like, I have to go to the bathroom, he's on my shoulder. Like, we did everything together. Like, anybody with a dog or anybody with a pet

who's really bonded, it's the same thing. You know, mine was just a tiny little fluffy rat. You know, but that bond was there and we shared with the world. And, you know, people resonated with that, whether or not it was with an animal, because that's what hit the most was you're violating human rights and animal rights. You know, this resonates with the guy that got pulled over for speeding and pulled out of his car. know that's it's it's the government overreach here is you get a guy that has a heart on one day or had a bad day At home he takes it out on you You know the lead investigator of this raid was awarded the best DEC Officer of the year like two years prior to this whoa, and and this is how you're conducting yourself

is the Consensus when we were there of the year, like two years prior to this. Whoa. And this is how you're conducting yourself? Crazy. The consensus when we were there was, please don't take my animals. And one of the officers looked me dead in my eye. It was like, it was a squirrel and now it's a raccoon. When does the snowball effect stop? As if I was harboring giraffes and actual monster animals. Again, you didn't walk in and I had a bear.

Yeah. Two little animals and Fred was there as a temporary thing. Somebody dropped him off. You know it's not like you can call a you know booklet and be like oh you know so and so I have a raccoon. You're an animal rescue. You're an animal lover. Somebody dropped off an animal at your front porch.

You're going to want to help that animal. Yeah. Regardless of what it is. And that's what we did. My wife and I sat there and plucked about 80 ticks out of his ears. And washed him up, gave him food and water, wanted him to get big enough so he could be released in our woods. That was the only premise of it. It wasn't like, oh we're gonna put Fred on Instagram and you know start a new movement. It was just literally this little dude needed help and we got the means to help him. Let's start him in the right direction and then release him. You know and if I

need some paperwork to do that to just be a kind-hearted person then arrest me. You know or give me a fine but it'll never stop me from wanting to go and help. And they took that and they ran with it. And that's the heartbreaking point here is you came after me and you didn't find anything on me. Whether or not you were trying to associate my OnlyFans with the kids that we help work on the farm and babysit, you know, it's shameful. It's disgusting. It's not like somebody is like, oh they're selling a bag of weed. You know that you're making some very strong accusations that you you can't turn around and apologize for you know, there's

There's a line and that line was heavily crossed. Absolutely. Why'd you pick only fans over every other platform? I just I had the opportunity somebody called me up and was like listen We can make you X amount of money and the wheels kind of turned for me It's like, you know, I never really used social media to monetize anything. I was a mechanical engineer. I had my own job. You know, I had my own career. So it was never really like, oh, I need this money for me. I'm gonna go buy a Ferrari. You know, but my wife and I had ambitions.

And they were like, you can make a lot of money really fast. And I was like, well, do I stay here and save every penny for the next seven years? And hopefully I could buy a farm one day? Or do I just pivot, do something that's not everybody's cup of tea, but at the end of the day I don't give a crap what you think about. You know, this was a way for me to fulfill my dream. So if I have to do cartwheels naked to make a little bit extra money, so be it. You know, and it was very successful.

And I was able to purchase the farm and start the organization. And for the most part, you know, we've only done this for a year and a half my only fans money was the 60% of the funding for the sanctuary Wow and you know our sanctuary needs 30 to 40 thousand dollars a month yeah the foods expensive and all those right that care you know you have dental work your feet you know it depends on the severity of the neglect cases. So it's not something where you can just go, oh, okay, you know, hay is a thousand bucks. You know, this is that. There's so many variables.

What if a horse gets sick? Your vet bill is 10 grand. You know, so it's like you need it. So we were using Peanuts social media platform. We got our 501C3. We were taxed right off. And, you know, slowly slowly was starting to gain traction with Animal lovers, you know you have a cool animal sanctuaries built around him and Yeah, there's this wasn't now. You know let's let's see if we could just kind of pull everybody's heartstrings make us money

You know the end of the day we were probably bringing in ten thousand dollars in donations so you know the 25 30 grand extra was out of pocket for me and my wife and you know we were like well maybe one day this will kind of shift and more people get involved with a startup you know and it's not a profit we're not making anything you know everything that we we bring in goes right back out to these animals so it's not like okay we have a baseline now and we'll bring in this we'll profit off of this it was just no to the point where my wife started

making goat milk soap and lotions. And, you know, we did everything we could to just get as much funding as possible. So when you kick the legs out of it by killing, you know, peanut, they left us in, you know, vulnerable position. This nobody comes here to look at me. You might hear my voice, but you're looking at the squirrel wearing a cowboy hat or Santa Claus hat. You know, you're not here for me. You know, I'm not the squirrel guy without the squirrel.

And so how am I going to present the squirrel without the squirrel? You know, how am I going to keep people engaged if I don't have the main star of the entire thing? So... Makes sense. That was the toughest part was, holy cow, what are we going to do now? Yeah. Have they pretty much told you you can't have any more animals there? No, it's been complete radio silence. They took the animals and the government went dead silent.

The governor didn't say anything. We heard about the demise of Fred and Peanut through a local news station. Crazy. Three days later. So I'm begging and pleading on the internet for people to call the DEC, call agencies, find out where Peanut is, all while he's dead already. Wow. So they killed him right away? Right away. And they blamed it on rabies. My theory was, and and this is what started to become the snowball effect, is you have a rabies vector animal on Fred, right? You think of raccoons, you think rabies right off

the bat. You know, you see a raccoon on the street and broad daylight rabies You know and you see a fluffy squirrel that's been on the internet for seven and a half years clearly doesn't have rabies But the narrative is peanut is the star So if peanut bites somebody We're gonna call rabies. Mm-hmm They use the 37th day of The aftermath there's been no bite evidence. There's been nothing Mm-hmm. It is the 37th day of the aftermath. There's been no bite evidence.

There's been nothing. Yeah, you think they would have to back up that claim, right, when they say rabies? Every claim that you've made has been shut down so aggressively. You know, you're out here saying this guy is purple when everybody can see his blood. And I think that's where the silence comes in. But who am I to judge that? You know, maybe they're trying to get their information together. But you tell the world that a pet squirrel bit through two protective pairs of gloves, who's a professional, right? So you have a professional officer who gets bit through two pairs of gloves.

That shows incompetency or the bite never happened. So why did you get the job in the first place if you couldn't handle a squirrel when your job is also to help animals like bears, and coyotes, and dogs, and much bigger mammals? But you let a indoor, very cuddly, very sweet animal bite you through two pairs. You know, so it's like, this is like me going, oh you have blonde hair. Yeah. No, you don't. So it's just, you're sitting here just with your jaw on the floor, along with the entire world asking the same question. How long you've been doing this? You know, this isn't the first case. Not at all.

Was your lawyer able to get any information on them or anything? She, there's a 12 month, a 12 week, it's 12 pages notice of claims. That's how much information went in this. From your amendment rights to your constitutional rights, you know, your civil rights, and you have false arrest. My lawyer is making a strong claim of you know being a companion animal. He's never a wild animal. You know it's clear as day right you know if you took a three-year-old squirrel indoors or any

type of animals after having such a long wildlife okay that's a wild animal. You have an animal who since a, has been living inside. He falls under a companion animal, under the law. Like, you can make a strong case of it. If he was, then there would be felony charges brought up on the state. Whoa. Under the Animal Cruelty Act.

You killed a companion animal under the Animal Cruelty Act. So those are not allowed, like emotional support animals, you can't touch those? No, no you can't. You can't come in and kill a dog like that. Wow. You know, it's, it's, first of all it's disgusting. You know, you're supposed to be protecting animals. You're supposed to be the light for people to feel safe.

And you're telling me over some paperwork, you came and raided my house for five hours. Something's wrong here. And the bigger picture is not being seen. And that's what we're trying to shed some light on, is to go, hey, this is bigger than these two animals. I love them to death, but this is much bigger than all of us. Yeah, you might set a precedent. Right. And you know, they're even attempting to pass a bill, a Penis Law. Really? Make sure that, you know, animals have ample time. There's due process. That's the biggest thing, Harris. I didn't have my day in court.

Right, you couldn't even fight it. Right. My animals didn't have their day in court. And, you know, you could call a bite a bite. A spade's a spade, whatever it is. Why wasn't that animal quarantined for 10 days? The New York Post just did a huge article with an expert on rabies.

You know, rabies for humans take 45 days to get to your brain. Once you get your vaccine it's wiped away. So one why weren't you vaccinated? If you were please produce it and if you weren't why didn't you have it or get it? Yeah if you're in that line of work I mean you should get the rabies vaccine I'd assume if you're dealing with wild animals. 100% but also you clearly watch the social media. That's how you found out that I had peanut in the house and you can clearly see I don't have rabies. You know peanut didn't have rabies. My whole family

didn't have rabies. Everybody that's been on the farm doesn't have rabies. This was a holy crap moment going we don't really have an answer We got to come up with one and the lack of experience you have a small town you have sheriff's office You have two animal control officers in you know three counties Yeah, these people weren't set and ready for something this big to come their way So it was kind of let's scramble to just come up with something and it it's my opinion, but you know, it's clear as day. Yeah. It's such a shame, because you were trying to provide a safe spot for people to go to and, you know, feel better. You were talking about going to slaughter auctions, saving horses from being slaughtered.

Right. That was the whole premise of why we moved up here. And you know, it makes me regret moving to New York. You know, if I just stayed in Connecticut and lived my normal life, you know, I'd still be here, I'd still be happy with my family. You know, but it was the bigger picture was you know, there are animals out there that need Helping hand they need a second chance. Yeah, and my wife being a huge animal lover and huge You know growing up on a farm and and having horses. We really didn't understand how Sad it was out there you know you go to these slaughter auctions you see the

the shape that these animals are in, and you want to help them. And knowing that they're being bought and sold for meat is devastating. We have enough things to eat. We don't need to eat horses and donkeys, you know. I can't believe that's happening in the US. Right. So it's actually illegal for people in the US to slaughter them. So what people do is they buy them here, they ship them to Mexico, Canada, and they get a ton of money off them.

We gotta feed our families, I understand that, but there's that moral respect is don't do that. Find another way to help your family. But again, who am I? If you're providing for your family and this is the way you have to, so be it. But I'm gonna take a strong stance against it. We're gonna raise the money to help save those animals. So you know, you go and buy a horse for 200

bucks, sell it for two grand. It's a big payday. You know, so we started this organization to go, hey, when this happens, we'll raise enough money for that $2,000 to save that horse. And we'll build that horse back up, whether or not it's able to be adopted out. Just knowing that we have a secondary area to go, okay, it's able to be adopted out just knowing that we have a secondary area to go okay if it can't be adopted out or if it has you know lingering injuries it could retire at our sanctuary and that was the whole premise of wanting to start this was you know everybody needs a second chance and we're the voice of the animal and and that's what our mission was yeah

that's crazy man I didn't know those auctions were a thing slaughter Slaughter auctions are called? How can people look more into those? Honestly, I'm relatively new to it, but you could literally type in auction, animal auctions in whatever state you are. You know, being in a rural area, in a farm area, it's much easier to find them and they're huge. You know, they're once or twice a month. You go there and there's hundreds of animals. Yeah. and you know There's farmers that go there to get the animals I'm I'm totally for using your animals for farm work, but you got to provide it the food and the care that it needs But when you can't do that and you're doing this vicious cycle of running them to the ground and then selling them

you know something has to change and You know, that's what we thought was the best way is to go in Try to make a stand on it by by taking it. We have 74 horses. Damn. Yeah, we have a lot of 100 goats. Holy cow.

We have over 350 animals. So it's not like we're sitting here begging and pleading for people to donate on one horse. One horse is expensive enough and add 74 more. We take in pregnant horses, we take in, you know, pregnant horses, we take in, you know, run in the mill, like there's animals that we have that I couldn't pay you to take back, you know, but we love them because, you know, they give you the respect and love and just, you know, you might, they might not be able to say it, but you could see the love that they're like, hey, thank you. You know, I have one that's about 2500 pounds.

He's a damn, I call him our dinosaur. His name is Wilbur. You know, he's 28 years old. He was, you know, a big Amish workhorse. And all he wanted to do was just relax. And he free rooms the entire farm. Like, there's a lot of areas where we just let them go. And they walk around with this kind of big smile on their face and just let them run free. You know, that's what they deserved. Yeah, and and just to be able to provide that on the back of you know peanut Was what I wanted this whole thing to be you know, obviously that didn't work out as I planned but it doesn't stop us from the mission that we have and You know, does it suck that this had to transpire?

But you know the sacrifice that was made here for the greater greater good is what I have to take out of this positivity. You know, doing this, talking about this. I mean, people go, wow, that's really messed up. And just make sure that we just this never happened. Yeah, beautiful. You think you're going to move out though? No, I think that would be disrespectful for Peanut and Fred and to the other animals. Right? You know, if I just up and leave, what does that say about me?

You know, I have a mission, I have a goal, my family does. And that mission is to continue in Peanut's legacy. Because ultimately that's what I told our viewers was, you know, we don't, they don't live as long as we do. And this was the legacy that I wanted to build for Peanut. You know, he left us a little bit earlier than I anticipated, but you know, it won't stop us from what our goal was. Now that we have almost the world on our side, we want to make this one of the best places on this planet for animals.

Yeah, what's the next step? What's something people watching this can do actionable to help you or help their community? Absolutely. You know, we're expanding, you know, not only on our farm, but, you know, if you want to follow Peanuts Freedom Farm, we have, you know, this really kind of boomed in the social media realm for our sanctuary. It really built up people who had no idea who Pina was or what we were doing behind it. You know, getting involved, whether you're a local and want to volunteer or you need a tax write off, you know, this is, this is the best form of a way for us to go, hey, we'll put in the work. If we can get the funding behind us. I have no problem shoveling

horse crap for 15 hours. And for all the naysayers are going, oh, you're doing this for money, like, come to the farm, scoop up horse crap for 15 hours, see if you come back the next day. Come and live in a rural area that has more people than teeth and see if it's as luxurious as you think it is. And that's a common misconception is like, oh, he has a nice car, he has a nice house.

Like I said, I had a job, I have a career, I saved up money and I didn't move to this area for me, you know, there's nothing to do. Like our best steakhouse down the street is like Olive Garden. You know, it's not like you come here and you have, you know, Vegas steaks and New York City steaks, you know, Arby's is like your choice at night. 1800 people there. That's less than my high school. Right. You know, and that was like we want to be left alone. I'm a strong like my perspective animals over humans a large

majority of the time. Can't deny that. I'd be honest. You know, and then you know, we obviously we took a big leap into this crypto. Right. You know, I'm way before an amateur here and I got caught up in, you up in some people that fed me a bunch of BS. And it started with like, oh, we'll make a contribution

to your GoFundMe or your social media or the farm. In return, just give us a nice little shout out. I'm not thinking anything of it. The money is helping the farm. So I'm gonna do whatever it takes to help the farm So you know three or four you know these these people are using my animals, so I'm like okay. You know What are we doing here? You're you're taking this story, and you're running with it for money And you're not even donating to the sanctuary like so they didn't donate. Oh, no there was there was one or two

It's maybe a three on top of my head that contributed, but it was a fraction of what they made. They're making hundreds of millions of dollars. What? Yeah, oh yeah, this original peanut coin I think had a market of almost two billion. Yeah, so P-N-U-T was the coin, right? I saw this one. Right. We had no affiliation with this whatsoever. Really? They never reached out. They never spoke to us. They took my story, my own photo. My hands are in the photo. They're making hundreds of millions of dollars. Holy crap.

And you're sitting here going, WTF? You know, you're building this kind of an empire in the crypto world with the story of a tragedy and cutting the family and the organization out of it. It's terrible. They could have thrown you like a percent or whatever, you know. You know, and then, you know, not getting down to it, but it was like, OK, let's find some people that know a lot more than I do. Right. And I put my trust in some people that failed me, which made my name get run through the dirt in the crypto world.

Well, this is topping the Hawk Tour girl yesterday. Oh yeah. Yeah, she got wrecked. She got destroyed, you know, and it's like, again, we're not experts, you know, I can't speak for her in this, but you know, I'm no expert, you know, people are like, oh, you rugged 15 coins.

I'm like, I started this crap two weeks ago Wait, what do you mean rugged? I didn't develop any of this I went to people that said hey, you know we could develop a coin and we could make your sanctuary a Really good money at the end of the day There's two options two things I want more than anything here is retire my parents and make sure this this sanctuary lives on forever I'm not gonna buy a Ferrari. I don't keep a crap about a Rolex means nothing to me. It's solidifying this organization and What we were being told was? Astronomical amounts of money, you know something that would be able to really solidify both

All right, you know get the like two and a half million dollars of renovations I need to be done at the bar and on the farm, you know provide locals jobs, get more involved with all this stuff. So your wheels are turning, right? You're vulnerable. You just had your house raided for five hours, your animals killed. So you're in this point where you've got to do whatever it takes. And I trusted some people who, you know, did some shady stuff behind my back. And obviously I'm the face of it. They sniped all the tokens. Oh, they did way more than that, you know, and it was heartbreaking because, you know, again, these were people that, you know, I knew from my wife, right? These were people that I didn't know, but I felt trusted them because they had some affiliation with them.

Yeah. And again, I was like, listen, don't give me anything. The less I have is better because, again, if I sell something and it ruins something, I really don't know what I'm doing. So literally giving you the pulley, the gate, the keys, you know, and, and that's on me. You know, that was like my trust level was, hey, I don't really know what I'm doing. You guys kindly just take whatever you want to allocate to me. Keep it. Whenever it comes

to our time, make the donation. And it was a couple days later, people were just yelling me, you're stealing money, you're doing this. And I'm like, guys, I'm just kind of sitting here. I don't know what the hell is going on. And they're throwing out numbers and this and that. And long story short, there's a lot of stuff that was missing. And I'm the one being targeted here.

My face is the face of this. You were the only one that was publicly on it, right? Right. So now you're trying to defend yourself in an area you have no... I don't know the lingo, I don't know the terminology. I don't know what's sniping and rugging and all this thing. And then you're reading like, oh, this is his 15th coin. I don't even have that many animals. There's no coins. I'm being involved don't even have that many animals, coins, you know,

I'm being involved in a Trump token and this and that I'm like, you know, no, I don't even know how to read this damn chart, let alone being a part of it. And, and, you know, we, we kind of, we sat down with people that I met over the course of this kind of this debacle of crypto. And I met them and they were like, listen, we don't need the money.

This is not about the money. It's about the story. It's about you and we wanna make sure moving forward that your sanctuary is solidified. And they took me under the belt. They started to show me the basic one-on-ones and we developed Justice for Peanut. And I'm even wearing the merch here

let's go shout out to justice for peanut you know but it's still like you're building everybody's trust back you know and it's like oh you stole you're a scam or you're this like guys all I want you guys to know is like this is about my farm and my family if I wanted a Ferrari I would have joined the peanut token stole or scam the rug the hell whatever the hell you want to call it, took a bunch of money and just left. You know, I'm here fighting for the story, I'm here fighting for justice, I'm here fighting for

the common person who got ripped out of their car, got their dog killed. Those are the people we're fighting for because they didn't have the voice that peanut did. And that's what was the biggest thing you said is I had so many people reach out and go the DEC did this to me. They killed my animals right in front of me. They shot my dog. And they just walked away. And that's what this movement is about is bringing that commuter together to

make sure that those people have a voice. Absolutely. So it's it's like, okay, now you got to get the the FUD, the FUD out of it, and build people's trust. And that's, that's what we're doing here. You know, I was even going like hey after this podcast I'll go get a tattoo that says justice for peanuts You know that's how much this means to me and if you want to call it a money grab call it a money grab You know I'll show you the wallets. I'll show you where the money goes I'll show you that we want to build a new barn and arena and put that damn token on the side of it Yeah, and have the community go, wow, we built this. We saved this animal. Yo, we collaborated and

helped this family. Yo, are we on Christmas time, we donated to, you know, the Children's Hospital or you know, it doesn't just stop here. Yeah, I'm not expecting everybody to jump on board for peanuts freedom bar. But we have enough people and we have enough community members to go okay, there's family in Louisiana that needs help, or this organization California is battling forest fires you know how can we help and that's what this movement's about yeah and and that's that's why we're here. Yeah I want to support more local

farms and sanctuaries because right now the farming like industry has been taken over by big companies and the animals are treated like shit right and now and it's a big thing you know and hopefully this you know shedding a tiny light from a scorned raccoon can bring that light to bigger things that are happening. You know it doesn't just stop at animals rights stops you know we got to stop it everywhere. I know it's a lot easier said than done but you know you take a story like this and it opens everybody's eyes. You know not only pay taxes, this is where your taxes are going,

your tax money's going to, six figures to raid some guy's house in the middle of nowhere for a 10 month investigation. It's crazy, and it goes on a bigger scale too with Trump. They went after Trump, they spent nine figures of our tax dollars going after him, and now all the charges are getting dropped. They just wasted it.

Exactly, and you know, I'm not politically affiliated with anybody you know but you could tell that this changed the tide and a lot of people's views on politics you know you had young kids teetering on you know what side they were gonna vote and you know after what happened on the election if you said peanut was not involved with tipping the scale, you're not just... Peanut was involved. It was all over X for weeks. Right. And you know, it's one of those things that it's a government overreach. And if we want to be a part of change, this is the story to start that movement. Whether or not it swayed anybody in their voting, you know, it's the timing couldn't have been any better.

Absolutely. I mean, 450 government agencies, something crazy like that. And I think Elon just posted yesterday that only 1% of them show up to work. Right. Right. So crazy. They were paying those salaries. Right.

You know, the biggest thing that I took out of this was the Supreme Court commented on it for reform in New York State for peanut-the-squirrel. Supreme Court doesn't comment on anything. Commenting on my squirrel. That's how big this was. Was you have world leaders going WTF. You know what the Supreme Court said. They've literally said this is like the we need reform.

You know we and that's we have enough things to talk about. And I always said this from the beginning like I shouldn't be in the new we have bigger fish to fry and Although I'm honored to be able to fight for my animals You know what's happening to the kids that you know have to sleep under a rock at night The the people that can't afford their their electricity, you know, those are the people were fighting for but yeah We're talking about a squirrel, you know, you have Kathy Hochul, our governor in New York State, advocating for animal and human rights. Where were mine? You don't want to talk about mine though.

You know, you falsely arrested me in my house. You broke five amendment rights, but you want to talk about rights. So she had to sign off on that? The governor? Oh, 100%. Wow. She's the head of the DEC. Damn. She's the voice. Those are your agencies. And you're telling me you didn't have any idea what was happening here?

How do you have multiple people and then a family court judge sign off on this? So somebody had to go, hey, yo, so and so, hope you're having a great day, how's your family? Oh yeah, by the way, can you just sign this real quick? Anybody with a brain would have looked at this case and gone, I ain't signing that and putting my name on it. Except this guy did it without a sweat broke. You know. It's just another

day for him right he probably does that once a week at least. Right. You know and that's the same goes with the police you know the agents that showed up here. You've done this so many times there's a cakewalk. You didn't go through your procedures because you've done this so many times you don't have to worry about it. The difference is you had a voice. Right. You know they're probably doing it to ordinary people. They don't have social media following. Nothing happens. And that's exactly what they thought here was we're just going to go do this. We don't like this family being here. We're going to show them we could flex our muscles. We're going to kill your animal. Literally the name of your

organization. We're going to kill it and you're going to have nothing to stand on. What am I going to do? If I don't have this platform there goes my donations. There goes the name of my organization, I'm gonna kill it. And you're gonna have nothing to stand on. What am I gonna do? If I don't have this platform, there goes my donations, there goes the name of my organization, I have to shut down. And most people don't have money to fight something like that. Right, so it's like, that's what they came here,

they kicked the legs out of this organization and they thought they were just gonna walk away from it. And boy, were they wrong. And that's the biggest thing, the love and support for this. Walking down Vegas and just being here and people going like justice For peanut like that. There's no dollar sign that could ever amount to that. You know that's a surreal moment Yeah, you know if we do a Netflix documentary on this I can see it You know it's it's a story that is so unbelievable that every turn that you make there's something else that you're like holy crap

And it's just just sitting here talking about it. You're like this is this can't be real Yeah, and can't wait to see what you do with a mark where people keep up with you and donate and all that stuff Yes, just we have our socials. We have our website. You know it's you know minus scroll dad You know but it's it's peanut the scroll 12 like it's always been the same original stuff And then you know we abbreviated peanut to make a little bit more original. So we went with a P apostrophe and UTS, Freedom Farm, you know, the more supporters and the more you know, we kind of continue to drive us in the right direction. The more you know, organizations we'd help not only ours, but you know, that's what we ultimately want to do is, is help those veterans help the PTSD help the children help the children, help the lower income families. Whether it's providing free services at the farm or raising money for their care, it doesn't just stop at the organization. That's where I think this movement

to really be focused on is yes, what happened to me was a bad thing. Let's shift the narrative here and let's help people and animals alike. I love that man, we'll link everything below. Thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it, I think it was a good time. See you at Power love that man. We'll link everything below. Thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

I think it was a great time. See you at PowerSlap tonight. Absolutely. See you guys. Take care. Take care.