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A long horse tale may land in court

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

BY ANDREW KITCHENMAN AND ALEX ZDAN
STAFF WRITERS

TRENTON -- Two horses kept in a North Ward backyard may be sparking an
international incident.

The city of Trenton, which takes the position that keeping a horse in a
backyard is illegal, may soon be in conflict with the Abannaki Aboriginal
Nation after a deadline for the horses to be removed lapses tomorrow.

Never heard of the Nation? Emperor El Bey, who lives on the 200 block of
Ellis Avenue and owns the horses, has all the information.

"This is a place to rest and this is an embassy for my sovereign nation,"
he says.

El Bey was happy to see a reporter who arrived at the home yesterday
evening, and had dozens of pages of documents which he purported bore out
his story.

"You just tell me what you think," he said.

El Bey, a young, trim, well-dressed black man with a salt and pepper beard
that makes him look older, says he is a descendent of the Abannaki tribe,
American Indians who settled in Canada and the United States 2,000 years
ago. These Indians were actually Moors, the members of the fabled Lost
Tribe of Israel, he says.

El Bey said his four grandfathers were kings, and his claim to the monarchy
includes lands in Trenton, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Alabama. The horses were
brought from the land in Oklahoma and, as El Bey considers the half of the
duplex he resides in as foreign soil, he is free to do as he wishes with
the property.

The city of Trenton issued a 10-day warning to remove the animals that
expires tomorrow, according to city spokesman Kent Ashworth.

If their owner doesn't comply, he will be issued a summons and go to court,
Ashworth said.

"This is not legal," Ashworth said of the horses.

The city Department of Health found the horses after receiving a complaint
from a neighbor about odors.

Residents must apply to the city to keep livestock, but the city has not
allowed any livestock in re cent years, Ashworth said. The city has turned
down requests for pigs, sheep, pygmy goats and miniature ponies, he said.

However, residents with expertise in caring for reptiles and pri mates can
receive permission from the state, Ashworth said.

This is not the first time members of the Nation have conflicted with the
city. A man arrested in Trenton and charged with marijuana possession
claimed diplomatic immunity as a visitor from the Nation in 2007, and two
other men who showed false diplomatic documents to city police that same
year were arrested.

One neighborhood woman said the horses are no bother, but two male
neighbors who asked not to be named disagreed about the property.

"It stinks. A lot," one of them said.

"I think it's not enough space for two horses," his friend said.

Both of them said they did not know El Bey personally, and esti mated the
horses had been on the property for one or two months.