Stock market trader targeted

Edmond Sun (Oklahoma)
August 31, 2002
David Hartman

"Puppy killer, puppy killer! You're a (expletive) puppy killer!" Those are the types of chants Skip Boruchin hears every day when he answers his business phone.

But not just once or twice a day. Hundreds of times a day, he said. Boruchin, a local stock trader, has been the target of a protest group that wants to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences, one of the companies whose stock Boruchin offers for trading.

So, given the phone calls he's put up with since early July, the two-person protest in front of his office at 301 S. Bryant Thursday afternoon was more of a minor inconvenience.

The protesters - Aaron James, 23, of California, and Jenna Krem, 19, of Illinois - picketed outside Boruchin's office for a couple of hours Thursday, telling anyone who would listen that Boruchin is a market maker for the stock of a research company that they believe is cruel to animals. The group claims 70,000 animals including dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, rabbits, mice and fish are imprisoned at three Huntingdon facilities in the United States and United Kingdom, and that 500 animals die there every day. Boruchin said Thursday that the company develops new and experimental drugs that can benefit humans, and testing on animals is an inevitable part of that process.

He's not affiliated with the company, he just allows the public to buy and sell the company's stock through him.

That's Boruchin's right, he says. That's the American way.

But the organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty disagrees.

While their two-person protest might not have been very effective in spreading their message to the public to get Boruchin to stop trading the company's stock, the group's Web site is another matter.

The Web site lists Boruchin's home address.

And his home telephone number.

And his Social Security number.

And the names, addresses and phone numbers of all his neighbors on Steeplechase Drive.

"There are some very sick people in this world," Boruchin said Thursday as James and Krem paced circles in front of his business door.

Neighbors harassed by the Stop Huntingdon group have put notes in his mailbox, asking him to move out of the neighborhood, he said.

But Boruchin said he's not moving, and he's certainly not going to quit trading Huntingdon stock.

Boruchin said he believes it's wrong for a group of protesters to be able to drive a company's stock off the market.

"If they can do it in Edmond, Okla., they can do it in New York City."

And as the phone calls mount - Boruchin estimates he's received as many as 450 in a single day - and the letters and harassment of his neighbors continues, Boruchin said his resolve to ride out the storm only strengthens. "Whatever they do, bring it on, because I'm going to continue in spite of what they're doing."

Regardless, Boruchin conceded the group's tactics are bothersome.

"Look at those kids," Boruchin said of James and Krem. "They have no idea what's going on in the world."

Boruchin said he doesn't anticipate being able to educate the protesters about reality or to change their thoughts. "I just want them to go away."

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