Actress and animal-rights activist Alexandra Paul was arrested after authorities said dozens of protesters entered Ridglan Farms on Sunday morning, removed beagles from the Wisconsin research breeding facility and expanded an investigation that was still unfolding Wednesday.
Paul’s arrest pushed a local criminal case into national view, but the larger fight centers on Ridglan Farms itself, a business that has been under years of scrutiny over how it houses and breeds dogs for research. The immediate questions now are practical and legal: how many people will be charged, how many beagles were actually taken, whether all of them have been recovered and how the case will develop as Ridglan moves toward a July 1 deadline to surrender its state breeding license.
Deputies said the confrontation began at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday, March 15, when 50 to 60 protesters entered the property in the town of Blue Mounds, west of Madison. The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said agencies from Mt. Horeb, Verona, Madison and the University of Wisconsin also responded after reports that activists had moved past the perimeter and begun taking dogs from the site. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said his office recognized how strongly people felt about the beagles, but he added that “our role is to keep everyone safe” when a protest crosses into unlawful conduct. Early public statements from law enforcement described a fast-moving scene in difficult weather, with officers trying to secure the property while sorting out who had entered which parts of the facility, which vehicles were being used and how many animals had been carried away.
The first public arrest count was imprecise and it changed as the case developed. The sheriff’s office initially said about 20 people had been arrested. By Tuesday night and Wednesday, local reporting in Madison and Milwaukee described 27 arrests tied to the break-in. Paul, 62, was later identified as one of the people taken into custody and was reported to have been charged with misdemeanor trespassing before being released for a later court appearance. The sheriff’s office publicly named three other defendants in its first statement: Wayne Hsiung, 44, of New York; Aditya V. Aswani, 29, of Brooklyn; and Dean F. Wyrzykowski, 29, of San Francisco. Authorities said Aswani was booked on a tentative burglary charge, while Hsiung and Wyrzykowski were booked on tentative criminal trespass charges. Investigators also said they seized two vehicles, burglary tools and other evidence, a sign that prosecutors are likely to sort participants by conduct rather than treat the entire crowd as a single block.
The number of dogs taken remained even harder to pin down. Activists attached to the action publicly described the removals in different ways as the day unfolded, first speaking of more than a dozen dogs, then 22 or 23, and later 31 beagles. Law enforcement accounts also shifted. In one early statement, deputies said all of the animals taken had been recovered and none had been injured. In the sheriff’s formal release the next day, the office said only that some beagles had been recovered and returned, while several remained unaccounted for. Ridglan Farms spokesperson Jim Newman added another layer of uncertainty Tuesday when he said the facility had not yet received all of its animals back. That left the public record with no final count as of Wednesday. Officials had not said whether all missing beagles were taken by the same group, whether any had been moved out of Wisconsin or whether future charges could include theft or property counts tied specifically to the dogs.
That uncertainty landed in a dispute that had already been building for years. Ridglan Farms has operated near Blue Mounds since 1966 and has long bred beagles for biomedical research while also conducting some research on site. Animal-rights groups have targeted the facility for much of the past decade, arguing that dogs there were kept in cruel conditions and should be adopted out instead of sold or used in experiments. Ridglan has repeatedly denied abuse allegations and said it operates within state and federal rules. Last October, a settlement with a special prosecutor allowed the company to avoid prosecution in exchange for giving up its Wisconsin breeding license by July 1, 2026. That agreement means Ridglan is supposed to stop breeding and selling dogs under its state license, though a separate research arm licensed under federal rules is expected to continue. Activists and lawyers involved in the earlier case have said the site still held dogs in the low thousands after the settlement, which helps explain why the March 15 protest drew people from outside Wisconsin and why the stakes remained high even before Paul’s arrest drew broader attention.
The earlier settlement also created an unusual backdrop for the current criminal case. Court records cited in recent local coverage say special prosecutor Tim Gruenke concluded last year that he could have charged Ridglan with felony mistreatment of animals under Wisconsin law, but he decided against filing charges because the company agreed to shut down the breeding side of its business and spare the state the time and uncertainty of a prosecution. That decision did not resolve the debate over what should happen to the dogs still on the property, and it did not shield protesters from criminal exposure if they entered the facility without permission. As of Wednesday, investigators still had not laid out a complete timeline of the break-in, a final property-damage estimate or a full accounting of which defendants might face which charges. Authorities also had not announced an initial court date for Paul. Tentative jail bookings for other defendants can change once prosecutors review video, witness statements, recovered tools, vehicle records and whatever accounting law enforcement eventually reaches on the missing beagles.
The human scene around the case underscored how differently each side describes the same morning. When the last detainees came out of the Dane County jail Tuesday, fellow activists greeted them outside the public safety building before marching to the courthouse and demanding action against Ridglan instead of against the protesters. Paul said she had traveled from Oregon to take part and described herself as “an animal rescuer, investigator.” Aswani said the group believed ordinary protest had stopped short of forcing change. Newman, speaking for Ridglan, took the opposite view and said the activists broke into a federally registered facility and removed animals “without permission,” using force and tools. He said the most important next step was for those arrested to face a judge. That split in language is likely to shape the case from here: activists are framing the event as a rescue, while the sheriff’s office and Ridglan are treating it as a coordinated criminal entry that may rise or fall on physical evidence, surveillance footage and proof of who did what once the crowd got inside.
As of Wednesday evening, officials had not publicly settled the arrest total, the number of beagles still missing or the date of Paul’s first court appearance. The next milestones are formal charging decisions, initial court hearings for the people booked in the case and Ridglan’s separate July 1 deadline to surrender its state breeding license.
Author note: Last updated March 18, 2026.