PONY SAGA PLAYS OUT RESCUE GROUP RALLIES FOR PARALYZED GIRL WHOSE ANIMALS WERE SEIZED.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

ACTON - Confronted with a battery of news cameras and reporters, a paralyzed 8-year-old girl cried for her two ponies, taken away by animal control officials.

Adriana Lopez, who speaks little English, nodded when she was asked if she missed the ponies, which were confiscated a year ago after a neighbor reported them wandering on his property.

One was later killed because it was incurably lame, and the second was given last week to a new owner, county officials said.

``They wouldn't give us a chance to get the pony back to Adriana,'' said Leo Grillo, president of Horse Rescue America, who brought Adriana and her family before reporters at a news conference at his DELTA animal rescue shelter in Acton.

Grillo, whose DELTA organization is embroiled in its own legal battle with the county on allegations the giant Acton shelter lacks a kennel license, accused county animal control officers of failing to care for the horses after they were taken away last May.

He showed photographs that he said were shot by a private investigator in January at the Lancaster shelter of the pony with overgrown hooves, Blanquillo, less than a month before it was euthanized.

``This is what happened at animal control,'' Grillo said.

He said his organization is willing to buy the surviving pony, Brownie, from whomever adopted it, and to arrange for a place for it to live - for Adriana and her family to visit whenever they want.

Animal control officials said the ponies had been neglected before they were picked up and that they tried to save the one that was euthanized, but its physical condition was too poor and the animal was in pain.

``We tried for months and months working with the farrier and veterinarian to save the horse,'' said Kaye Michelson, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control.

Adriana's father, Lorenzo Lopez, pleaded guilty to one count of felony animal cruelty on April 21 at Antelope Valley Superior Court, officials said. He is expected to be sentenced to three years of probation and 60 days of community service, and to be ordered to repay the county's cost for caring for the ponies.

The ponies had been left behind when Adriana's family moved from a rural west Lancaster property her father owns to a Rosamond mobile home park. Adriana has been in a wheelchair since she was 6 years old, after she was accidentally shot by a neighbor boy in February 2003.

Her father had been returning daily to care for the ponies, Grillo said.

The ponies were picked up on a neighboring ranch after the foreman reported they were wandering around his property, Deputy District Attorney Kelly Cromer said.

The man told an animal control officer that the ponies frequently wandered away from the Lopezes' home, and that Lorenzo Lopez each time would eventually come and get them, Cromer said.

This time, he told the officer he hadn't seen anyone at the Lopez home for a week. Animal control officials were loading the ponies onto a trailer when Lopez drove up and said they belonged to him.

Both ponies could barely walk because their hooves were badly overgrown from lack of care, especially the one that was euthanized nine months later, Cromer said.

``They had basically been abandoned,'' Cromer said.

Lorenzo Lopez pleaded guilty to the animal cruelty charge only because he was threatened with six months in jail, Grillo said at the press conference.

The charges were filed in January, the same month Grillo said he began asking questions after being tipped off by someone at the Lancaster shelter of a pony being kept there in poor condition.

``He was an immigrant who couldn't speak English who was railroaded,'' Grillo said.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Adriana Lopez, 8, sheds a tear over the two ponies that were seized. One was euthanized, and one has been adopted by a new owner.

(2 -- color) Adriana, paralyzed and wheelchair-bound after a gun accident at age 6, sits on her pony Blanquillo in 2003.

(3 -- color) Louisa, center, and sister Adriana Lopez listen while Leo Grillo, president of Horse Rescue America, speaks about a picture of the pony's hooves while it was in animal control custody.

(4 -- color) The pony Blanquillo, as shown in 2003. The animal was euthanized earlier this year because of poor health.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer