GRRR! He got off! What the heck! That's horrible!!!
---
WHITE PLAINS — A man accused of smashing his girlfriend's Yorkshire terrier against a toilet was acquitted of aggravated cruelty to animals yesterday.
The jury's verdict in Russell Miller's case came on the third day of deliberations. Miller is still facing unrelated felony drug charges and was returned to the Westchester County jail after the verdict was announced.
Miller and his girlfriend, Erin Young, got into a heated argument early on Jan. 10 at her home on Fair Street.
He demanded she return items he had given her and they began tussling over the dog in the bathroom. Young's sister, Sibohan, testified last week that Miller grabbed the dog, held it over his head and then slammed it down on the toilet three times before dropping it in and fleeing the house.
A second sister testified she saw Miller strike the dog against the toilet once.
Erin Young called police as her sister pulled Sugar Bear from the toilet. The dog was rushed to a local animal hospital, where he was euthanized after a veterinarian diagnosed the animal's condition as a broken spine.
Although she was the complainant in the case, Erin Young did not testify at the trial. Had she been called, she likely would have disputed her sisters' version of how the dog was injured.
Her unavailability was significant as it led Westchester County Judge Robert DiBella to rule that the jury would not hear a tape of the 911 call she made to police that morning because the defense would not be able to cross-examine her about it. The prosecution wanted the tape played to show that Young had immediately accused Miller of hurting her dog.
Miller's lawyer, Richard Gould, argued in closing statements Monday that there was significant reasonable doubt whether Miller had intentionally harmed the dog and whether the dog was even seriously injured.
He attacked Sibohan's credibility, saying she previously told detectives and the grand jury that the dog had been struck more than three times. And he called a second veterinarian who testified that further tests would have been necessary to diagnose a severed spine.
Gould said there were no forensic tests on the toilet to prove that the dog had ever been slammed against it.
Miller, 25, did not testify but Gould suggested he told detectives the truth when he was arrested two weeks after the incident — that he might have accidentally stepped on Sugar Bear while arguing with Young.
Assistant District Attorney Mary Ann Liebowitz urged the jury not to believe that the severed spine occurred by accident. She said the differences in the two sisters' accounts were not significant and that one vicious blow could have caused the dog's injury.
Miller would have faced up to two years in state prison had the jury convicted him. He still faces up to 25 years in prison on the pending charges of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsro...19dogcase.html