Closing arguments are expected Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to a case that has shone a national spotlight on animal welfare. A jury will decide whether Rosenberg participated in a justified rescue, as her legal team put it, when she illegally entered Petaluma Poultry — or a crime that could merit up to four and a half years in prison.
“It’s not a whodunit, it’s really a whydunit,” Chris Carraway, Rosenberg’s lawyer, told KQED ahead of her trial’s opening in September. “Zoe believed that this conduct was permissible under the circumstances.”
The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Rosenberg, an organizer for animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, visited Petaluma Poultry four times without authorization and tagged a dozen farm delivery vehicles with GPS trackers in the spring of 2023.
In June of that year, prosecutors said, she entered the farm in protective gear, examined crates of chickens on a truck bed, and placed four in a red bucket while about 50 DxE activists rallied outside. The incident was captured in video footage, viewed by KQED.
Rosenberg’s attorneys, Carraway and Kevin Little, have posited that her actions came after efforts to report mistreatment at Petaluma Poultry to local authorities.
Rosenberg said Tuesday that another DxE organizer, Carla Cabral, testified to how sick the birds were when Rosenberg removed them. Cabral cared for the four birds — renamed Poppy, Ivy, Aster and Azalea — immediately after they were taken, and told the jury their bodies were covered in wounds and scratches, had infected feet and one had a respiratory infection.
“They cannot, beyond a reasonable doubt, prove to the jurors that I had a criminal intent when I entered the slaughterhouse and to rescue these chickens,” Rosenberg told KQED. “This case is about what was in my heart and my desire to help Poppy, Ivy, Aster and Azalea.”
According to the Press Democrat, though, Rosenberg’s legal team was barred ahead of trial from using a “necessity defense,” or making the case that Rosenberg’s action was necessary to prevent imminent harm.
Her lawyers have also tried to downplay her involvement in the incident, relying on testimony from former DxE activist Raven Deerbrook, who was Rosenberg’s co-defendant before reaching a plea deal over the summer. Deerbrook told the jury that she had been investigating conditions and Petaluma Poultry prior to Rosenberg’s involvement, and spearheaded the series of break-ins that led to the chicken capture, the Press Democrat reported.
