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       Jerry Lee Holly, the owner of the three zebras that escaped in Maryland in 2021, was found not guilty Wednesday of three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty.

       The three animal cruelty charges were for each of the three zebras that escaped from his Upper Marlboro farm in August 2021 and ran free for three months, giving a pandemic-addled region a dose of delight and capturing national attention.

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       The saga turned dark, though, when one of the zebras was found dead in what appeared to be an illegal snare trap in a forest owned by the Girl Scouts. The missing zebras were eventually “returned to the herd” in December 2021, the county said in a statement, though county and federal officials were not involved in the capture.

       The trial was at least the sixth time Holly, 78, has faced criminal charges related to his animals, according to court records. In all but one of the previous cases he was found guilty. Those criminal cases, alongside hundreds of allegations of animal misconduct from local, state and federal animal welfare officials, should have prevented Holly from ever having his zebras, experts told The Washington Post in an investigation published this week.

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       Holly declined numerous interview requests but his attorney in a statement on Sunday said he is a “successful businessman who has contributed greatly” for many years to the local economy and is “looking forward to telling his side of this story in court.” The statement noted the charges in Maryland do not relate to any zebra death.

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       The zebra escape, The Post found, was another example from the decades Holly has been in business in which officials accused him of mishandling creatures in his care. Federal and Florida inspectors for years have accused him of violating animal welfare laws, in cases related to other exotic animal escapes, inadequate vet care and neglect, rusting and rotting cages, enclosures covered with feces and poor record keeping, which authorities said is consistent with illegal animal trafficking.

       The Post also found after reviewing more than 1,000 pages of inspection reports and court records related to his businesses that Holly for decades repeatedly failed to obtain all the permits required by local, state and federal agencies to breed, buy and sell wild and exotic animals in Maryland and Florida, two states where Holly operated animal business over the last 50 years.

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       Before Holly brought a herd of 39 zebras from Florida to Maryland in August 2021, he did not obtain the permits required by Prince George’s animal control to have exotics in the county, officials said. The herd was unloaded before dawn at his Bellefields estate, but the county said it did not learn that three of the zebras had escaped until days later, when neighbors called to report a sighting of them in their yard. A few weeks later, a Girl Scouts forest groundskeeper discovered the dead zebra in the alleged snare trap.

       Soon after animal control officials announced one of the missing zebras had died, a news helicopter hovering over the property owned by Holly notified authorities that they had spotted a second dead zebra. This time, the zebra was from the main herd corralled at his sprawling farm. Hours later, animal control officials charged Holly with the three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty, arguing in court documents that he had neglected the animals by letting them escape and not capturing them in a timely fashion.

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