A 58-year-old Buena Park man was charged with felony animal cruelty and accused of killing a pregnant dog while he was on probation after previously attacking a coworker with a metal pipe, Orange County prosecutors announced Wednesday, Dec. 3.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office accused the man of wrapping the dog’s neck with rope attached to an SUV and driving until the animal’s neck snapped.
“There is a special place in hell for people who abuse animals,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a statement. “This was not an act of rage. This was a clear plan to kill a defenseless animal, and when he executed his plan, he drove off, leaving the animal’s body in the alley for someone else to discover the horror of what he had done.”
Surveillance footage around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 1 showed the man getting out of the driver’s door of a Ford Expedition in the 600 block of Brookhurst Street in Anaheim while holding a white rope, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
He then looped one end of the rope to a yellow parking bollard and the other to the Ford’s tow hitch ball before taking a small white dog in a milk crate out of the SUV, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Footage showed the man loop the center of the rope around the dog’s neck, get back into the Ford and accelerate forward until the rope tightened enough to break the animals neck, prosecutors said.
He got out of the SUV to look at the dog before driving away, leaving the dead dog, believed to be a 6-year-old Maltese, in the alley, according to prosecutors. The dog suffered a severed spine and arteries, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Hours later, the manager of a nearby business found the dead dog and called police, who arrested the man and also accused him of having several baggies of methamphetamine at the time of his arrest.
The man was also charged with a felony count of possession of a hard drug with two or more prior convictions and violating parole.
He is serving two years of probation after pleading guilty in October to assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury and vandalism causing damage of $400 or more, both felonies, according to prosecutors.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of eight years and four months for the animal cruelty and drug charges and another maximum sentence of four years and eight months for violating his probation.
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