Civil trial begins over accusations of Hilton Head turkey thefts

The defendant claimed he was a victim of theft. The plaintiffs say they were only trying to save the lives of turkeys their neighbor shouldn't have been keeping at his Sea Pines Plantation property in the first place.

Five years after the parties started trading allegations, a jury heard opening arguments in a civil trial that began Monday in the 14th Circuit Court of Common Pleas.

Siblings Robert and Jennifer Klippel say they were defamed by defendant Ralph Dupps and seek actual and punitive damages, along with attorney fees for malicious prosecution,emotional distress, defamation and false arrest, among other things, according to a complaint filed by the Klippels' attorney.

In 2004, Dupps accused the Klippels of taking his turkeys from his Sea Pines Plantation home and setting them free. The Klippels sued Dupps after the charges were dismissed, claiming he falsely accused them and caused public humiliation by their wrongful arrest.In her opening statement Monday, Dupps' attorney, Mary Sharp, said her client came home from a trip on Dec. 9, 2004, to find his turkeys missing. She encouraged the jury not to focus on what witnesses and the plaintiffs will say about the turkeys' behavior.

"I think you're going to hear allegations and testimony that's irrelevant," Sharp said.

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office served arrest warrants for petit larceny on the Klippels when they turned themselves in at the Beaufort County Detention Center in January 2005, according to a Sheriff's Office report. They spent about 10 hours each in the detention center, according to the Klippels' complaint.

The warrants charged the pair with taking seven pet turkeys from Dupps' home at 61 Planters Wood Drive at about 5 p.m. Dec. 8, 2004.

Dupps said he later found four of the birds in the Sea Pines Forest Preserve but never found the other three.

The plaintiffs appeared in Magistrate Court in 2007, where Toby McSwain of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office told the judge that charges against the two siblings "lacked all merit" and should be dismissed, according to the Klippels' complaint.

The Klippels admitted they took the turkeys to a wildlife preserve but said they did so only after a Sea Pines security officer told them Dupps had set the turkeys free, according to the complaint.

The complaint states that Robert Klippel and his wife called Sea Pines Security on Nov. 18, 2004, after a turkey chased their 3-year-old son around their backyard. For the next six weeks, according to the complaint, the turkeys roamed freely on Robert Klippel's property and became a nuisance.

After Jennifer Klippel reported another complaint about the turkey on Dec. 6, 2004, a Sea Pines security officer told them that Dupps had "relinquished his ownership of the wild turkeys and had set them free," according to the complaint.

The next day, the turkeys were back. When a Sea Pines security officer couldn't capture them, he suggested shooting them, according to the complaint. The following day, according to their complaint, the Klippels took the birds to the wildlife preserve, in part because they "did not wish to see the wild turkeys killed."

The trial resumes today at 9:30 a.m.