State AG Says Rebel Ridge Owner Violated Injunction Banning Dog Sales

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper is pursuing action against a Blountville woman accused of selling sick puppies imported from Eastern Europe as healthy ones that she raised herself.

Rebel Ridge Kennels owner Gina De’Lynn Hodges Price is being charged with contempt of court for violating a June 2006 injunction that prohibits her for selling animals via the Internet.

The charges, which could carry civil penalties totalling $10,000, are the latest in a series of legal actions taken against Price over the past two years in both the state and federal court systems.

According to court documents, Price imported English and French bulldog puppies from Lithuania, Lativa, Belarus and Russia. She then sold them through Rebel Ridge’s Web site for between $1,200 and $1,600 a piece.

Price claimed she raised the animals herself when she sold them and also guaranteed they were in good health when they actually suffered from severe ailments including hip dysplasia and heart murmurs.

A spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs said the office registered 10 formal complaints against Price and Rebel Ridge Kennels. The business is also featured on the agency’s "Buyer Beware" list.

In light of the complaints, Cooper filed a civil charges against Price in May 2006 that charged her with violating Tennessee’s Consumer Protection Act by "engaging in unfair and deceptive acts and practices in connection with their sale of dogs."

He then obtained the 2006 injunction against Price and her co-workers that barred the sale of any dogs publicly, advertising the sale of a dog and operating a Web site or Internet-based service designed to sell dogs.

Attorney General’s office spokeswoman Sharon Curtis-Blair said Thursday the office received complaints that Price has recently been operating her Web site in a way that violated the injunction, which is why the state is now pursuing the contempt of court charges against her.

While Cooper was filing civil charges against Price in state court, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office was filing criminal charges against Price in federal court.

A federal grand jury indicted Price on six criminal charges, including mail fraud and wire fraud in October 2007.

The federal grand jury met again on Tuesday in Greeneville, Tenn., and added four new charges, including tax fraud to the indictment against Price.

Curtis-Blair said the state postponed its civil lawsuit against Price when it learned of the federal charges. She said the U.S. Attorney’s Office has sealed a key piece of evidence needed in for the state’s case and the state Attorney General will likely bring the lawsuit back once they have access to the evidence.

Price was originally scheduled to appear in the Chancery Court in Bristol, Tenn., on April 19 for a hearing about the injunction, though Curtis-Blair said the hearing would be rescheduled and she did not have a new date on Thursday.

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