The man accused of running a gruesome illegal slaughterhouse on a farm on the outskirts of Hialeah was ordered held on $500,000 bond Monday.
Rudesindo “Rudy” Acosta, 57, was booked into jail Sunday on 40 counts of confining an animal without food, water or exercise, 3 counts of animal cruelty, 3 counts of conspiracy to commit animal cruelty and 1 count of using a firearm while committing a felony.
Acosta made his first appearance in a Miami-Dade court Monday. Javier Estevanez, 33, and Luis Cardoza, 24, and two 14-year-olds, are also facing charges in the slaughterhouse operation.
On Saturday, authorities and volunteers rescued hundreds of horses, pigs, goats, cows, geese, ducks and chickens from the slaughterhouse.
Authorities say Acosta repeatedly beat animals with sledgehammers and stabbed them with knives. The incidents were caught on undercover video, authorities said.
Hialeah Police spokesman Carl Zogby said Acosta was squatting on the land and authorities had been investigating the farm for several months.
"Obviously they suffered a great deal before they died and in some cases they started butchering these animals before they were dead," Zogby said.
“This property is straight out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a really scary place," said activist Richard Cuoto, who did much of the undercover work secretly filming the slaughters.
“If you know the right people you can enter these farms and buy any type of meat you want. You can go up to a live animal, pick him out, they'll walk up with a sledge-hammer, kill and torture that animal right there in front of you, butcher it and leave with it to pack,” Cuoto said.
Cuoto is largely responsible for uncovering and ending many illegal slaughterhouses. He said this is just one of many in Miami-Dade County, but added that it is possibly one of the worst he had seen.
