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A jury on Friday returned a split verdict in the case of a Utah man charged with 11 counts of cruelty to animals in the dehydration and deaths of nearly a dozen horses in Salt Lake County last year, finding him guilty of four of the charges and acquitting him of the other seven.

The defendant, Shamus Josef Haws, 40, is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 4 by Salt Lake County Justice Court Judge Shauna Graves-Robertson. He faces up to three months in jail and a $750 fine for each of the four class C misdemeanor counts.

Haws was charged a few months after 10 horses were found dead on July 18, 2014, in a private, fenced field near Pleasant Green Cemetery, near 3500 South and 9200 West in Magna. An 11th horse survived.

Jay Kessler, Haws' attorney, said the verdict "doesn't make any sense" and questioned how his client could meet the standard of care for seven of the horses but not the other four. He declined to comment further.

Unified Police said the animals did not have water, and necropsies performed on three of the horses by the state Veterinary Diagnostic Lab found they died from dehydration.

Prosecutors said Haws, an Erda horse trainer, put the horses in the pasture on July 8 and checked on them only once in the next 10 days, despite temperatures reaching the 90s. The high temperature was 96 degrees on the day the horses were found.

Kessler said at trial that although Haws was responsible for the horses, a contract employee for the company he runs with his father-in-law was supposed to make sure a trough in the field was always filled with water.

In addition, Kessler said the necropsies suggested the horses might also have died from poisoning, raising the possibility that access to water wasn't the only issue.

pmanson@sltrib.com Twitter: PamelaMansonSLC