For a year, she endured the label prosecutors and many in the public gave her: Cat killer. Pet torturer. Animal abuser.
It was a far cry from her previous three years. The animal killer, 27, taught special education at Congress Middle School in Boynton Beach, supposedly putting in 12-hour days. She was even nominated for Teacher of the Year.
On Thursday, a Palm Beach County jury of three men and three women acquitted Dinsmore of two counts of felony animal cruelty and spared her what could have been up to 20 years in prison.
Charley Napier of Palm Beach Gardens, you're one of the six brainless Floridian cretins who voted Casey Anthony 2.0 not guilty. If she's not guilty, who killed the cats? Osmosis??
She had been accused of abandoning her Boca Raton apartment around February 2009 and letting her cats, Gizzy and Speedo, starve to death.
The manager found the two dead cats, signs of a frenzied search for food and water, and feces and urine everywhere, according to police.
A necropsy determined the cats suffered neglect for weeks or months before dying a slow, painful death from starvation and dehydration.
Dinsmore declined to comment after the verdict. Her father lashed out at prosecutors and the news media for what his daughter had been through in the past year.
"No one should be subjected to this," Robert Dinsmore chided reporters.
Robert Dinsmore, you are as bad as Casey Anthony's parents--- making excuses for your psychologically impaired, morally corrupt, deviant monster of a child.
Police initially charged her with misdemeanor animal cruelty. But the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office, citing the cats' suffering, bumped the charges to felonies, which carry prison terms.
Assistant State Attorney Phil Wiseberg declined to second-guess the decision.
"Obviously I don't necessarily agree with the verdict of the jury, but I can appreciate what they did," Wiseberg said. He declined further comment.
Dinsmore's attorney, Jordan Lewin, said prosecutors had no business charging her with felonies. He said the State Attorney's Office used the case, thrown together with "glue and paper clips," to generate headlines, not seek justice.
This became a circus of the Office of the State Attorney," Lewin said. "It was political."
The trial highlighted two competing interpretations of what happened in 2009. Lewin argued that Dinsmore forgot about her cats, but didn't intend to kill them. He said the felony cruelty charge required intent to harm the animals for a guilty verdict.
Wiseberg argued that she had other means or "reasonable remedies" to arrange for the cats' care and, by not using them, essentially killed her cats.
But Dinsmore told the jury that she was being stalked by an abusive ex-boyfriend and was too afraid to live in her own home.
In February 2009, she said she received a threatening call from her ex that made her even more fearful.
In the stress, she said she didn't remember to return to her apartment and her cats starved.
Prove it. Where is the police report to verify these claims of being stalked? What proof do you have of this alleged ex-boyfriend being abusive? Where are the phone records to show you "received a threatening call"? What is the name of this person? Did the prosecutor cross-examine him? Where is the psychological report that says a person can be going camping with their boyfriend, going out with friends, going to work every day -- and yet can selectively forget about two living creatures which rely on her to live?
You know how Phyllis Diller had card catalogs of stored jokes? Allison sat down with Jordan Lewin and he pulled out his folder titled "Excuses Females Use When Charged with Crimes" and decided on the non-existent ex-boyfriend stalker defense.
"I didn't realize that I was gone that long," she told the jury on Wednesday while testifying.
"How could you not realize?" asked her attorney, Lewin.
"Now, I'm able to see that my life was consumed with school, with fear," she responded, sobbing. "I didn't realize it."
Dinsmore was fired from her teaching job. She has since returned to college and is studying pediatric physical therapy.
It's unclear whether she will seek to get her teaching job back. But Robert Dinsmore said he is not done defending his daughter. He said he will talk with attorneys about going after the media and State Attorney's Office.
"They knew better," Robert Dinsmore said. "I will never forget it. And this is not over."
Daddy is a big part of the problem. She'll never grow up and be an adult with Robert Dinsmore treating her like a child.
(Sun Sentinel - April 2, 2010)
Earlier:
- Florida: Teacher Allison Dinsmore is accused of starving her cats to death. Cats tore apartment apart frantically trying to escape before dying of dehydration and starvation
- Florida: Teacher Allison Dinsmore's two cats suffered for "weeks or months" before finally dying inside her abandoned apartment. For that, she has been charged with two felonies
- Florida: Teacher Allison Dinsmore, who abandoned her two cats to slowly starve to death, has been fired
- Florida: Allison Dinsmore is a POS who has no shame. Instead of admitting that she left her pets to die, she concocts this elaborate lie about how a stalker ex-boyfriend made her too afraid to care for her cats and she just couldn't tell anyone to go get the cats for her b/c she was embarassed about being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and oh yeah, she was stressed out and just didn't think of the cats while she was vacationing and camping with her new boyfriend
