He should get a LOT MORE than 2 years in prison!!!!!!
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A White Plains man smashed his girlfriend's Yorkshire terrier against a toilet bowl during an argument at her Greenburgh home, the woman's sister testified yesterday.
Sibohan Young was the first witness at the trial of Russell Miller, who was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals after the Jan. 10 incident at the Fair Street home where Young and her sisters and children live.
Young testified that she came home early that morning to find Miller and her sister tussling in the bathroom over something that she later realized was Sugar Bear, the terrier, and that Miller grabbed the animal by its sweater.
"He suspended it in the air and just thrashed it against the toilet bowl at least three times," Young said of Miller, adding later that he had used "heavy force" and lifted the dog over his head before each blow.
Miller ran from the home after dropping the dog into the toilet, Young said. She said she pulled the dog out and tried to comfort it.
"It just looked like he was mangled," Young told Assistant District Attorney Mary Ann Liebowitz. "He was lifeless, just whimpering, crying."
Once police were called, the 8-pound dog was taken to a nearby animal hospital, where a broken back was diagnosed, and the dog was euthanized.
Miller was arrested two weeks later.
The defense concedes that Miller and his girlfriend argued that night but maintains that Sugar Bear was injured when he was stepped on accidentally during the argument.
Young conceded on cross-examination by defense lawyer Richard Gould that her relationship with her sister had deteriorated since Miller's arrest. She denied Gould's suggestion that that was because her sister thought she was lying about how the dog had been injured.
Gould showed her a document indicating the dog was owned by both Miller and her sister. Young testified that Miller bought it and gave it to her sister as a Valentine's Day present.
Liebowitz said in her opening statement that the case was about Miller's "anger, selfishness and violence." She told the jury that, during the argument that preceded the dog's death, Miller had demanded that his girlfriend return items he had given her.
Miller, 25, faces up to two years in state prison if convicted. The trial will resume tomorrow before Westchester County Judge Robert DiBella.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsro...dogkilled.html