On the first day of trial, prosecutors rested their case Monday against a Chicago woman accused of harassing Ogle County dispatchers and falsely reporting a shooting at a rodeo near Rochelle in May 2025.

Jodie Wiederkehr, 56, is being tried on two counts of false reporting, a Class 4 felony, and one count of harassment by telephone, a misdemeanor. The charges were filed in June 2025.

Wiederkehr serves as the campaign director of the animal advocacy group SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness, which has alleged that a rodeo holding steer-tailing events at 16989 Ritchie Road south of Rochelle, Rancho La Esperanza, is violating Illinois’ animal protection laws, and had been urging Ogle County officials to shut it down. The group’s advocacy efforts ramped up in summer 2025.

[ Northern Illinois counties struggle to regulate Mexican-style rodeos, steer-tailing events in their area ]

Steer tailing, or coleadero, is when a horseback rider chases a running steer, grabs its tail and wraps the tail around the rider’s leg to slam the animal to the ground. It’s banned in Nebraska and in parts of California and Colorado. Illinois has animal cruelty laws, but none that specifically outlaw steer tailing.

The charges against Wiederkehr stem from May 25, 2025, when prosecutors allege she called Ogle County dispatchers 27 times and during two calls said that she saw someone get shot at the Ritchie Road property when she knew that was not true, court records show.

Wiederkehr’s attorneys have said those calls were intended to report animal cruelty actively occurring on the property, and at trial intend to establish a “necessity defense” by arguing that Wiederkehr was justified in her actions because she was trying to prevent a greater harm.

On Monday, Wiederkehr appeared before Ogle County Associate Judge Anthony Peska with her attorneys, Brad Thomson of Chicago and Chris Carraway of Colorado.

The 12-person jury was selected by 12:30 p.m. following the formal screening process that began at 9 a.m. At 1:35 p.m., attorneys made opening statements, Ogle County Assistant State’s Attorneys Matthew Liesten and Allison Huntley presented evidence and called four witnesses to the stand.

Prosecutors called Ogle County dispatchers Taylor Burke and Susan Anders to the stand. Both were working May 25, 2025 – the day of the rodeo. Each testified they received repeated calls from Wiederkehr related to the condition of animals at the rodeo. The audio from each call was played in court.

“I’m gonna call all day. You guys need to stop this,” Wiederkehr said in one call to Burke.

“I keep getting hung up on,” Wiederkehr said in another.

Under questioning by Liesten, Burke said dispatchers must answer every call that comes in.

Burke said she felt “overwhelmed” by the calls because she was dealing with other emergencies at the time and it was already investigated by animal control.

When questioned by Thomson, Burke testified there were gaps of time between each call, around 35 minutes for one.

Anders testified, when questioned by Liesten, that they received calls for emergencies not related to the rodeo and had officers responding while Wiederkehr was calling.

“It was overwhelming,” Anders said.

Wiederkehr explained in several calls that she was not at the rodeo, but was being told by SHARK members capturing the event on video via drones that animals were injured, not receiving veterinary care and still being used in events.

During the multiple calls, Burke and Anders explained that reports of animal cruelty related to the rodeo could only be taken in person due to the department’s protocol.

During testimony, Burke and Anders said the sheriff’s office had a line with a recorded message set up for those types of calls and transferred Wiederkehr’s calls per protocol.

Under questioning by Thomson, Burke said she didn’t know if that line could receive voicemails and was not answering any potentially left on the line that day.

Burke said an Ogle County animal control officer had been at the property, provided veterinary care to those two injured animals, told rodeo participants not to use them in any events for the rest of the day, concluded their investigation and left.

In one call, Wiederkehr told Burke she was at rodeo, but in other calls said that she was in Chicago and receiving updates from SHARK members near the rodeo who had been documenting it via drones.

“If you’re not there right now, that’s falsifying,” Burke said. “You know that right?”

Several calls were answered and immediately placed on hold by dispatchers.

Under questioning by Thomson, Burke said those calls were placed on hold because dispatchers were dealing with other emergencies.

Under questioning by Thomson, Anders said she eventually was able to recognize calls coming from Wiederkehr by looking at the phone number displayed on caller ID.

In one call to Burke, Wiederkehr said, “I saw someone get shot,” asked multiple times if an officer would be sent to the property if she said that and said that it happened at the address of the rodeo.

In a subsequent call, Burke said an officer was at the property investigating the report of a shooting and Wiederkehr responded saying, “I told you that you know it wasn’t true.”

Burke said, when questioned by Thomson, that when she received that call, “I wouldn’t say that I had not believed her. If she’s saying there’s a shooting there I have to treat it as there being a shooting there.”

In another call to Anders, Wiederkehr again said, “I saw someone get shot.”

Anders responded saying, “That’s not what we’re talking about, we’re talking about animals.” Wiederkehr asked if would they send emergency services if that happened and Anders said, “I’m not talking about hypotheticals.”

Anders said she understood the report “as hypothetical” when it was made “with the what if,” during questioning by Thomson.

Prosecutors also showed body camera footage from Ogle County Sgt. Justin Diehl, who was in charge of the shift that day. The body camera footage showed a phone call he had with Wiederkehr after she made calls to dispatch.

According to that footage, Diehl told Wiederkehr charges were being filed against her and Wiederkehr continued to ask if they were going to send police to investigate for animal cruelty.

“An animal had a body part ripped off,” Wiederkehr said, adding that she tried to report the same thing during another rodeo a month earlier.

“We cannot continue to harass dispatchers. This goes beyond me; this is protocol,” Diehl said.

When questioned by Carraway, Diehl testified that Wiederkehr’s primary report was for animal cruelty. He testified that Wiederkehr’s first call related to a shooting was hypothetical, but the second was not and that’s when a single officer was sent to respond.

Ogle County Capt. Kyle White testified he was on patrol that day and had been stationed near the rodeo for about an hour when he was dispatched to the property for a shooting.

White said he didn’t hear any gunshots prior to being dispatched and made no observations of a shooting having occurred when he was on the property.

Prosecutors played video of that response captured by White’s body camera, which shows him walking up to the property, asking a few people where security is, walking around the rodeo and leaving.

To a person at the rodeo, White said, “I know it’s a B.S. complaint. I have to check it out though.”

White testified, when questioned by Carraway, that the totality of his investigation was shown on that video. He said that he knew where SHARK advocates were set up to document the event, but never talked to them that day.

“I was never dispatched for an animal cruelty complaint,” White said.

In the defense’s opening statement, Thomson said Wiederkehr repeatedly tried to report animal cruelty actively occurring on the property to police without success and asked dispatch hypothetical questions about how they would respond if she was calling to report a person being injured, Thomson said.

“In a moment of exasperation that’s what she did,” Thomson said. “Her report was necessary to prevent a greater harm. Her purpose was not to harass anyone.”

Defense attorneys plan to call SHARK President Steve Hindi and SHARK member Mike Kobliska to the stand Tuesday. They also plan to show video footage of the rodeo captured by SHARK that day.