A Superior Court judge has denied a Florida-based animal rights group a motion to reargue its case that three elephants held captive at a Connecticut petting zoo should be freed and sent to a sanctuary.

Judge James Bentivegna underscored his Dec. 26 ruling that the Nonhuman Rights Project’s petition for a common-law writ of habeas corpus seeking the release of the elephants from the Commerford Zoo in Goshen was “wholly frivolous.”