Humane Society of New York Employees Send Incriminating Letter to Activists

Angered that animal rights activists are calling out the names of veterinarians and other staff members as they exit the building, employees at the Humane Society of New York (HSNY) sent an anonymous letter to TheirTurn calling on the protesters to instead confront the Executive Director, Sandra DeFeo, about the warehousing of animals at the prominent Manhattan shelter.

To our surprise, the employees incriminate the HSNY in the letter, confirming the allegations that DeFeo is warehousing animals (and passing off breeder dogs as rescues, a secondary issue). Following are excerpts from the employees’ letter:

EMPLOYEES: “Look at the most recent Instagram post by HSNY with dogs Lila and Teuscher. Both have been at HSNY since 2016. They can’t possibly be that difficult to find experienced owners for.”

OUR REACTION: Lila and Teuscher are two of many animals who have been needlessly living in the HSNY’s cages for years. (Note: Even when the building was open to the public, Sandra DeFeo, the Executive Director, often discouraged adopters from rescuing animals, according to people who contacted TheirTurn. Until early 2020, however, Adoptions Director Bonnie Tischler was there to neutralize Sandra and place the animals into homes.)

In an angry letter to TheirTurn calling on animal rights activists to protest the Executive Director, Sandra DeFeo, instead of staff members, the writer incriminates the HSNY by acknowledging that the animals are being warehoused

EMPLOYEES: “How does Bonnie know that cats stay in cages 23.5 hours a day? Because that’s how it was when she was here.”

OUR REACTION: This is an acknowledgment that cats are, in fact, kept in cages for 23.5 hours a day. (Note: “Bonnie” refers to Bonnie Tischler is the former Adoptions Director who retired in early 2020 and is speaking out on behalf of the animals. When Bonnie worked at the HSNY, she ran a robust volunteer program that enabled the animals to spend long periods of time outside of their cages each day. Sandra DeFeo disbanded the volunteer program when she shut down the building.)

The Executive Director, Sandra DeFeo, claims that it’s closed due to COVID, but lawyers have advised the activists that it’s closed due to violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The building is not ADA compliant for people who use wheelchairs, and the HSNY already settled one lawsuit.

EMPLOYEES: “Why didn’t Bonnie do anything during her years to stop the relationship with backyard breeders Brenda and Sadarra Serrano of Brooklyn?

OUR REACTION: This is an acknowledgement that Sandra takes in breeder dogs and passes them off as rescues. (Note: Bonnie has told the activists that, when she ran the Adoptions Department, she pled with Sandra to pull animals from ACC instead of taking in breeder dogs from the Serranos.)

The Humane Society of New York passes off breeder dogs as rescues. (Click image to play video.)

EMPLOYEES: “It’s not right to tarnish the reputations of the veterinarians. Please leave them out of this. They do not have the power to change the way Sandra does anything. No one does, except maybe Lowell, Lexi Montgomery or Richard Phibbs. Not even Bill [Berloni], Anne-marie or Dr. Schmid can get through to her.”

OUR REACTION: Veterinarians take an oath to prevent and relieve animal suffering, yet the vets at the HSNY have been turning a blind eye to animal cruelty under their own roof since April 2020, when Sandra closed the building to the public. (Note: The nationwide shortage of veterinarians gives them leverage. They can insist that Sandra send the animals to adoption centers that are open to adopters or to foster homes. Until they do, they are accountable.)

Advocates argue that the veterinarians who work in the Humane Society of New York’s clinic are turning a blind eye to the warehousing of animals in the organization’s shelter, where adoptions came to a virtual standstill 28 months ago when the Executive Director, Sandra DeFeo, closed the building to the public. The veterinarians pictured are Shingo Soeda, Lauren Postler, Yaron Schmid, Ellen Hirshberg and Ralph Gutierrez. Not picture: Elizabeth Higgins.

EMPLOYEES:  “To heckle and harass the current support staff is directing your efforts in the wrong direction. They are earning their livelihoods to support their families and just doing their jobs. Their paychecks depend on them keeping quiet and staying in line.”

OUR REACTION: This statement is another acknowledgment that animal warehousing is taking place. If Sandra was doing adoptions, then these employees would have made that point in the letter. (Note: We agree that protesting the support staff is misguided, as Sandra could fire them if they express their concerns. We will therefore direct our protests toward the veterinarians and other senior staff members who have the power to speak out on behalf of the victims.)

EMPLOYEES: “Why not protest outside Sandra’s Riverdale home? Or focus efforts on other board members? Bring attention to those around Mrs. Chipurnoi’s daughters social circles so they might feel pressured to have their mother handle Sandra. Sandra needs to be your sole target.”

OUR REACTION: We’re not going to take advice on strategy from people who are only speaking out because they are angry about the protests, not the cruelty that led to them. That said, we have been contacting and, in some cases, protesting, the Board of Directors throughout 2022.  The once active president of the board, Virginia Chipurnoi, has been conspicuously silent since a whistleblower sounded the alarm about animal warehousing in July 2021. Humane Society insiders speculate that she has keeping a low profile because her daughter’s husband was sentenced to seven years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme in which his family members were victims.

Humane Society of New York insiders speculate that the board president, Virginia Chipurnoi, has stayed out of the spotlight at least in part because her daughter Alexandra’s husband, Alvin Wilkinson, was sentenced to seven years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme. According to court documents, Chipurnoi and Wilkinson are now divorced.

After Chipurnoi failed to respond to inquiries from people who she knows personally, activists sent letters by email and regular mail to her two daughters, Alexandra Chipurnoi and Sarah Gore Reeves, both of whom have been a presence at the HSNY over the years. Neither has responded, but both have engaged with the HSNY’s social media posts, which only serves to legitimize the organization as a bona fide adoption center.  We therefore agree with the HSNY employees’ suggestion to hold them accountable.

Despite the fact that they know that adoptions at the HSNY came to a virtual standstill 28 months ago when it closed its doors to the public, Sarah Gore Reeves and Alexandra Chipurnoi, the daughters of board president Virginia Chipurnoi, have helped to legitimize the HSNY as a bona fide adoption center by posting compliments on the organization’s Instagram page. They have not responded to letters sent by activists via email and regular mail.

As activists began to protest animal warehousing at the HSNY, three members of its board of directors resigned — Alexandra Rowley, James Gregorio and C. Jones Perry.  The board appears to be effectively defunct. The absence of supervision has enabled DeFeo, who describes the shelter as the animals’ “foster home” and the cages as “apartments,” to keep the building closed under false pretenses and to warehouse the animals indefinitely.