Hey, Sam Sanders here with kcrw, personally inviting you to check out my new podcast.
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New episodes are out every Friday.
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Just a quick warning.
This episode talks about sex and sex work.
It's an economic show, after all.
This is planet money from NPR.
On the morning of October 30, 2024, Mark Longo was doing what he does most mornings.
He was at his animal sanctuary on a farm in upstate New York, feeding the several hundred horses and goats and pygmy donkeys he's rescued, many of which he and his wife have saved from the slaughterhouse.
So where were you when the raid began?
So I was at the end of the driveway in the beginning, that is.
When Mark saw something strange and menacing approaching the property.
A convoy of SUVs with New York State government decals on the door.
They're from an agency called the dec.
What does DEC stand for?
Department of Environmental Conservation.
One of these Department of Environmental Conservation officers gets out of the car and tells Mark they'd come to his farm in order to take somebody into custody.
And then he produced a search warrant.
But the warrant wasn't for Mark or his wife or any of the people on the farm.