On June 9, New Ipswich Police Chief Garrett Chamberlain said someone called his department asking for police to check on DiBattista’s welfare; he was allegedly making threats to his own safety.

While en route to DiBattista’s house, police were notified by the Cheshire County Sheriff’s Department that there was an arrest warrant out for DiBattista because he missed a court hearing that morning.

Police found him standing in the barn, talking on his cell phone, Chamberlain said.

“When we went over to the house, we noticed there was eight or 10 horses in the barn,” Chamberlain said. “We noted that they didn’t have any food or water. He said he had given them the last that he had that morning. That’s when we were concerned about the welfare of the horses.”

Police served DiBattista the warrant and took him away; Chamberlain said officers also called the Monadnock Humane Society.

Three years ago, DiBattista opened An-Carm Farm and Benji’s Barn, a nonprofit shelter for neglected horses or former racehorses that no one wanted.

  (Photo courtesy of Bob Hammerstrom/The Nashua Telegraph)  He built a five-stall barn and three fenced areas on his forest-lined property in New Ipswich. There, he hoped the rehabilitated animals could in turn inspire disabled children and soldiers home from war.

During a phone interview in late May, DiBattista said he started the farm because he supported animal rights, and wanted to save horses that “were dumped or going to be slaughtered.”

In earlier interviews, DiBattista called himself “a broken man” who had been “given a lot of second chances,” but that the horses at his place “often don’t get a second chance.” He described growing up outside Boston and being involved in petty crime.

DiBattista is serving his sentence at the Cheshire County Department of Corrections.

In April 2009, DiBattista wrote a check for $2,400 to Pinnacleview Equipment Inc., a Walpole company that sells agricultural and industrial gear. In November, he was indicted on one felony charge of knowingly issuing a bad check.

DiBattista pleaded not guilty but was convicted following a jury trial June 8. He didn’t show up for court, was sentenced and the warrant was issued for his arrest.

On June 9, Pat Barry, of Rindge, checked her bank account and found that two checks DiBattista wrote for her daughters had bounced.

Alexa Barry, 19, and her sister, Meg Barry, 16, of Rindge, took jobs at the farm around Memorial Day. They were hired to clean out the stalls, feed the horses and put them outside into fenced areas.

The Barry sisters said they looked at it as an opportunity to give back through volunteerism, but said DiBattista insisted on paying them to care for “Fanny” and “Fabulous,” a chestnut-color mother and son pair; “Mac”; “EM-Z”: “Jules”; “Mr. T”; “Rags”; and another Philly with an impossible-to-say-name and a feisty attitude.

When they reported for duty June 10, DiBattista, of course, wasn’t there.

The girls found that the power had been shut off, and there was no running water. The sisters went across the street to borrow a neighbor’s hose, filling buckets and carrying them back. “They could tell that the horses had gone for awhile without food or water, maybe at least 24 hours,” Pat Barry said.

Later in the morning, a woman who knew DiBattista showed up and informed the girls he had been arrested.  Learning that, Pat Barry called the Monadnock Humane Society.

“I knew they’d be able to figure out some form of placement for these horses,” Barry said. She also contacted the New Ipswich Police Department and Public Service of New Hampshire, requesting that electricity be returned to the barn. She said she was told that the company couldn’t do anything.

Barry eventually found a man in Rindge who was willing to donate and haul over 12 bales of hay to get the horses through the weekend of June 18. The Barrys filled six water containers at their house and delivered them, too.

For three days, the Barrys visited the farm to feed, water and walk the horses.

On June 21, Stephanie Frommer from the Monadnock Humane Society arrived to assess the horses, organize trailers and figure out new placements. By the next day, the horses were relocated.

Frommer, the animal cruelty officer at Monadnock, said she couldn’t talk much about the incident because DiBattista wasn’t charged with animal cruelty.

“This was not a situation where I was called in for cruelty charges,” she said. “Obviously, the horses were left without anybody there for reasons beyond the owner’s control, essentially.”

Frommer said she had been in contact with DiBattista about turning the horses over to the New Hampshire SPCA.

Barry, who is also a selectman in Rindge, said she was impressed with the response by the humane society, but not with PSNH.

“When an owner is taken off a property, and you have livestock ..... we were hypothesizing. ‘What if we weren’t in the picture?” Barry said.

Martin Murray, a spokesman for PSNH, called the situation “unusual,” and said there are no written rules about the particular circumstances in New Ipswich.  However, he said the company is “always open to talking to customers, or in this case, community members, about what can be done because of the unique circumstances.”

Murray said PSNH was contacted by a man in June regarding ways to get the lights at the farm turned back on. The caller promised to get a payment to the company, Murray said.

PSNH was later contacted by Chamberlain, who informed the company that the situation with the horses “wasn’t dire” because the humane society was involved by then.  Shutting power off is always a “last resort,” Murray said.