DRESDEN, Tenn. (AP) — The owners of a West Tennessee farm where animal rights activists took undercover video have pleaded no contest to one count each of animal cruelty.
Thomas and Susan Blassingame were fined $25 each and given just under a year of unsupervised probation.
They were charged after the nonprofit Mercy for Animals released a video in August that showed the couple killing chickens on their T & S farm by hitting them with a spiked stick.
Tyson Foods cut ties with the farm, and the Blassingames' attorney, Steve Conley, says the couple has since retired.
Conley says he thinks the couple could have won had the case gone to trial, but the Blassingames did not want to.
He says "They didn't want to go through the stress" of a trial.