Lakewood Prosecutor Mike Burns Comments on Animal Cruelty Case

hi uh Mike Burns uh I'm the lakeood prosecutor here with the Bob Rothstein um the uh the case that we had on today was the uh the house over on spur street that had the 40 dogs living inside in terrible terrible conditions um I had spoken with the SPCA Sergeant who had issued the summonses um discussed with him what the current condition of the dogs were and he does assure me uh that each one of the dogs uh has been adopted out at at this point they're all doing well uh none of them suffered any kind of permanent injuries it was mostly issues of uh matting malnutrition uh things along that nature so none of the dogs died none of the dogs were permanently injured and they all have good happy homes now uh because of that what he suggested and what uh discussed with the defendant's attorney was um that we wouldn't recommend any jail time uh which is a slight possibility although there's a presumption against it for first offenders in Municipal Court uh and that she' pay fins on both of the summonses that were issued and most importantly uh that she'd agree to a 7-year animal ban which allows the SPCA to go to her home to do an investigation to make sure that she doesn't have any animals there at any point during the next s years and she has to cooperate with that that was done voluntarily on her part because she does understand that uh what she did was not acceptable it does appear that she has some some personal issues and she would didn't do this out of malice um that was very very important in in making our decision on how to proceed with it and what we should do with her uh and what the most appropriate punishments would be um that having been said I think the resolution puts uh puts us in a position where we don't have to worry about her in the future all of the dogs are in a good place and it it it allows us to to move forward and say you know what she's not going to have this issue we're not going to have this problem and it makes a little bit of an example because the fines were heavy um they were heavy for for her they were heavy for pretty much anyone uh but especially with her Li limited ability to pay them