HARRISBURG - Kelsey Lefever was well-known in the Pennsylvania horse world.

The 24-year-old horse trainer from Chester County competed at the Devon Horse Show and traded show ponies and draft horses on the Internet. At Penn National, near Harrisburg, one of the biggest racetracks in the state, she schmoozed thoroughbred owners, telling them she would find great homes for their horses when their racing careers were over.

In fact, state police allege, Lefever was selling the horses - as many as 120, by her admission - to contractors for a Canadian slaughterhouse, where they were butchered and shipped overseas for human consumption.

Lefever, of Honeybrook, was arrested in November and charged with five counts of fraud - three of them felonies - for selling four horses last May to a "kill buyer" who transported them to an abattoir in Quebec.