Animal Justice
by Ben Simmoneau
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - She was convicted of animal cruelty after a dog died in her care.
Yet the I-Team went undercover and found her working here in Philadelphia, holding a job you might not believe!
I-Team reporter Ben Simmoneau tried to get answers.
The I-Team's video shows Jackie Lockard working as a horse and carriage driver in Philadelphia.
But that's a job that Lockard should not have because two months before the I-Team began investigating, she pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges.
With our CBS 3 camera rolling I-Team reporter Ben Simmoneau introduced himself to Lockard to ask her, "I'm curious why you've taken a job with horses when you were barred from having contact with animals in New Jersey?"
"I'm not going to comment on this," Lockard responded.
It all started last May when Sissy Workman's chocolate lab Moose got out of their New Jersey yard.
She would never see him alive again.
"He just had so much to give to a person," said Workman. "He just was such a good dog."
Family and friends scoured their Delran neighborhood and put up fliers in their search for Moose.
Sadly, six weeks later, a neighbor told Workman she found Moose dead, just down the street.
That neighbor was Jackie Lockard.
"It was the person we suspected all along," said Workman as she recalled that day.
Workman said Lockard had acted strangely so she called police, and Lockard's story began to unravel.
Lockard stole the dog and sold him and was hired to train him, which is when she left moose in a hot car to die.
"That really hurts me," said Workman during an emotional CBS 3 interview. "He didn't ask for that."
In Burlington County Superior Court Lockard pleaded guilty to theft and animal cruelty for killing Moose and also leaving her own dog in the heat with no water.
As part of her sentence she is barred from having contact with domestic animals in New Jersey.
When asked by the I-Team how long she'd been working with the carriage horses Jackie said she'd been doing so since last summer.
But she shouldn't be dealing with horses in Philadelphia either.
Philadelphia city law says carriage companies should 'not knowingly permit...a rider, customer, or any other person convicted of cruelty to animals to have access to any horse'.
So the I-Team went to get answers.
"Nothing to say, nothing to say to the family whose dog you killed, admitted to killing?" asked Simmoneau.
"I didn't admit to anything," Jackie told him.
"You pled guilty, didn't you?" said Simmoneau.
"I'm not violating anything," Lockard said. "I'm doing exactly what I'm told to."
"We think if someone has gone to such depravity to kill an animal that they really shouldn't be around animals again," said New Jersey Assemblyman Troy Singleton.
After hearing about Lockard's case, the Assemblyman drafted Moose's Law, which if passed, will require a registry for convicted animal abusers similar to Megan's Law which is a registry for convicted sex offenders.
That way, someone like Lockard might not still be working with horses.
"It is pretty galling," said Assemblyman Singleton when he learned she was working with carriage horses.
"Nothing to say to the Workman family?" Simmoneau asked Lockard. "Because they're still devastated by what happened."
"I'm devastated too," she said.
"Then why did you do it?" asked Simmoneau.
Lockard had no response.
What does Lockard's carriage horse employer have to say about this?
The same day the I-Team showed up to question Lockard, 76 Carriage Company fired her and confiscated her carriage license, citing city law.
They say she failed to notify them of her conviction.
