PIKEVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Two teens convicted of attacking and shooting several horses in eastern Kentucky have been sentenced to six months in jail.

Pike Circuit Judge Eddy Coleman sentenced Jacob Leslie Ratliff and Michael Ross Damron, both 18, on Friday. With time served, the two will be headed to jail for 99 more days.

Official said the teens, driving a truck and armed with two shotguns and a pistol, gunned down a herd of horses on a strip mine in Beaver near Elkhorn City in January 2007.

Three horses died from multiple gunshot wounds and five others were injured. One 4-year-old mare named “Ghost” was shot more than 50 times.

One horse owner, Trish Varney, said Friday the sentence was fair.

As a part of the deal, Ratliff and Damron had to each pay $25,000 restitution to the victims.

“A light punishment would depreciate the seriousness of the crime,” Coleman said Friday. “But an overly harsh punishment would be detrimental to their future. It may destroy any redemptive value of these gentlemen.”

The two had previously pleaded guilty to charges of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor animal cruelty, agreeing to serve a 30-day sentence and enter a diversion program.

Coleman rejected that agreement last year and sent the case to trial in September. A mistrial was declared after Owens, the defense attorney, said in an opening statement that Damron had to take medication for impulse control. Coleman said attorneys did not alert the court to a mental defense.

Jacob Ratliff’s father, Mark Ratliff, said Friday that he wished Coleman would have considered expunging the crime from their records.

“I think it was fair, but I think they deserved it to be expunged because they’ve never gotten to vote and have no prior record whatsoever,” Mark Ratliff said. “Everybody’s allowed one mistake in their life.”

Damron and Ratliff have sued an eastern Kentucky television station and reporter for identifying them before they were charged as adults. The lawsuit says police asked a WYMT-TV reporter to withhold the teens’ names because they were 17 at the time of their arrests.

Information from: Appalachian News-Express, http://www.news-expressky.com

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