OHIO -- A Streetsboro man whose pit bulls seriously injured an elderly woman and attacked and mauled her dog to death in their own front yard during a July 2011 attack in Rootstown has been sentenced to a month on house arrest, five years probation and is banned from owning animals for three years.
John T. Dunn, 35, of 9007 S.R. 14, received the sentence from Portage County Common Pleas Judge Laurie Pittman. He pleaded guilty in December 2011 to failure to confine a dangerous dog, a fourth-degree felony, and faced a maximum of up to 18 months in prison as a sentence.
Pittman also ordered Dunn to keep a full-time job throughout probation and fined him $350, according to her sentencing order.
The Portage County Dog Warden’s Office, which filed charges against Dunn, said his pit bulls — a male named Brutus and a female named Sable — were running loose in the 4700 block of Greenwood Road on July 15, 2011, when they attacked Marie Hustead’s 2-year-old cocker spaniel, Lucky, in her own front yard.
Hustead, 70, suffered injuries to her hands and arms when she tried to scare off the pit bulls and save her dog. She received approximately two dozen stitches and required several surgeries, she said at the time. Lucky was fatally injured and had to be euthanized.
While Dunn was awaiting trial on several felony and misdemeanor charges in that case, he was charged with allowing Brutus and Sable to once again roam free in a Streetsboro parking lot on Aug. 27, 2011.
The dog warden’s office charged him with misdemeanors for failing to confine the dogs and not making them wear current license tags.
In that case, Dunn pleaded guilty to failure to confine a vicious dog, a first-degree misdemeanor, in December and was fined $150 by Portage County Municipal Judge Barbara Oswick. A six-month jail sentence and $850 in fines was suspended on the condition he have no similar offense for two years, according to court records.
Brutus and Sable were seized by the dog warden’s office following the August incident and euthanized.
Last month, Gov. John Kasich signed a bill changing a state law that automatically labeled pit bulls and similar breeds as “vicious.” The change takes effect in May.
Update: They have since eliminated the law, leaving Ohioans to be mauled by Pit Bulls.
(Record Publishing - March 10, 2012)
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