Ole Miss vice chancellor’s husband contests arrest for animal cruelty

A University of Mississippi vice chancellor’s husband wants a federal investigation into his arrest last week for animal cruelty.

“I am asking for a federal investigation due to false facts,” Terry Pegues, 47, told a Mississippi Today reporter.

“That’s all, that’s all,” Pegues added before hanging up. “Just print that.”

Pegues bonded out on Aug. 8, a day after the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department arrested him for 10 counts of animal cruelty. Earlier that week, officers had been dispatched to an address on County Road 418, in a hilly, rural area south of Oxford proper, after a citizen complained of possible animal cruelty, according to a press release.

No one was home, but deputies observed several malnourished and deceased dogs still attached to collars and chains, according to the release. After obtaining a warrant and searching the property, officers found 10 deceased animals and rescued 20.

The sheriff’s department did not release the address in question, but Lafayette County property records show Pegues owned a couple of small parcels of land in that area with his wife, Charlotte Fant Pegues.

Fant Pegues has served as vice chancellor of student affairs at Ole Miss since 2019 when she was appointed to the role in the interim. She was not charged in connection to the allegations against Pegues, according to a statement from a university spokesperson.

“University leaders are deeply disturbed and appalled by any instance of animal cruelty,” Jacob Batte, the university’s director of news and media relations, wrote in an email. “The university is not among the parties involved in the ongoing investigation by the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department, and the university is not aware of any charges against a university employee in relation to that investigation. Given the ongoing nature of the investigation, the university will make no further comment at this time.”

It is unclear if sheriff’s deputies interviewed Fant Pegues during their investigation. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

A native of Holly Springs, Fant Pegues has earned several degrees from Ole Miss and has worked at the university since 1993. She did not return a call to her cellphone by press time.

County records show Fant Pegues and her husband have owned multiple properties in Oxford and Lafayette County since the mid-2000s. She recently sold a home in the populated Southpointe subdivision to an Alabama family that was looking to buy a place for their two kids who are attending Ole Miss.

Bobby Michael, the dad who purchased the home, said he walked through it twice and never observed any evidence of animal cruelty. He did not meet Fant Pegues or her husband as the purchase was conducted through his Realtor, he added.

“I didn’t see anything like blood splatter or dog cages or nothing like that,” Michael said. “To be honest, I didn’t even know the names of the people we bought the house from.”

In her role as vice chancellor of student affairs, Fant Pegues oversees the leaders of various offices on campus related to student health and wellbeing, such as housing and the university police department, according to a university organizational chart . Her biography on the university website notes that “my husband, Tee, and I enjoy living in Oxford and love being a part of the Ole Miss family.”

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