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Volunteers at the “no-kill” Westchester Shore Humane Society in New York are accusing the animal shelter’s directors of cruelty, stealing from the charity, mismanagement and euthanizing hundreds of animals.

A lawsuit claims the society’s president, Nina Ryan, and her husband and board secretary, John Ryan, neglected animals in the shelter’s care. Vice President Marcia Halley is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

It also alleges, based on medical records, that the shelter euthanized hundreds of animals, even though its website claims a no-kill policy, according to The Journal News.

The plaintiffs want the court to remove the Ryans and Halley from their positions, order an accounting of the society’s assets, and force the Ryans and Halley to pay at least $150,000 in damages.

Fourteen volunteers and society members filed the April 24 lawsuit in the state Supreme Court. It also accuses the Ryans of renting a neighboring house owned by the society and keeping the proceeds for themselves, and of running a for-profit animal boarding business at the shelter, and using donated food to feed the pets boarded there.

John Ryan, who is also executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Westchester County, wrote in an email to the newspaper that in the past month he and his wife have spent $11,997 of their own money to fix up the property and pay bills.

He said he and his wife took a $30,000 home equity loan to give to the society, a loan the couple said they forgave years ago.

The Ryans and Halley also are trouble with the state Attorney General’s Charities Bureau, according to the newspaper. The bureau warned the society in February that it was delinquent in filing financial statements. State law prohibits a delinquent organization from raising money.

The Westchester County Department of Health says the shelter operated without a license for several months this year.

Health Department spokeswoman Caren Halbfinger said inspectors found healthy animals and a clean shelter during a visit last week, but she noted that its license expired at the end of 2011. The society reapplied weeks ago for another one, but the process is still not complete.

When Jane Guardascione, a 94-year-old Queens grandmother, lost her pet collie and constant companion, Angel, her granddaughter got on the phone, placing several calls to Animal Control and Care to see if the dog turned up in the city’s shelter system.

Angel wasn’t there, the agency repeatedly told her Friday.

On Saturday, though, she was told the 13-year-old dog had been euthanized at Animal Control and Care’s Manhattan shelter — the same day she arrived.

Shelter officials said Angel had collapsed at the shelter, had no identification and fit no description of any dogs reported lost. Because of her age and deteriorating condition, a veterinarian at the facility decided to euthanize Angel in an effort to prevent any additional suffering, the New York Daily News reports.

In a statement, the agency expressed ”deepest sympathies” to the family. “It is our goal to avoid euthanasia unless we deem it absolutely necessary,” the statement read.

Family members say, while Angel suffered from arthritis, she was able to get around just fine —  and was probably frozen with fear in the shelter. Jane’s daughter, Carole Miller, a collie breeder, gave her mother the dog when Angel was just over a year old. The dog was her constant companion, she said.

AC&C, which operates city shelters under a contract with the Health Department, is required to hold lost and stray animals for at least 72 hours before putting them up for adoption or euthanizing them. Exceptions are made if an animal is critically injured or gravely ill.

Outraged animal rescue groups said such mistakes are not unusual at AC&C and charged the nonprofit organization is plagued by mismanagement. In January, the Daily News reported that one rescue group sued the city because it was breaking its own law by not providing animal shelters in all five boroughs. The suit charged that facilities are overcrowded and disease-ridden and that animals are being euthanized in “unconscionable numbers” because there is no space.

State Delegate Michael Smigiel reported on his blog yesterday that he’s received comments from more hundreds of people in connection with the Cecil County SPCA, many of them containing new allegations of abuse and mismanagement.

“Originally, there were only three former employees, a few former volunteers and numerous citizens who had reported problems to my office about abuse of animals and financial mismanagement at the CCSPCA,” Smigiel wrote. “Subsequent to publishing a few of those accounts on this blog, over five hundred people have posted comments on this blog, called my office, mailed my office or came by personally. (Over 33,000 have logged onto this site, so far.)”

Smigiel added that “many new allegations about previous sadistic acts against these innocent animals have also come to light … We are busy collecting sworn statements from those who make allegations about animal abuse and will provide them to prosecutors.”

Representatives of the Cecil County SPCA decided this week not to attend a county commissioners meeting to discuss allegations of abuse that have been raised by Smigiel and and others because of threats of physical harm, SPCA President Nancy Schwerzler said.

In a letter provided to the county commissioners, Schwerzler said allegations being raised by state Smigiel are “not supported by facts” and that the Cecil County SPCA does not “routinely” shoot dogs.

Here is the letter in its entirety.

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