Joshua Moore, 23, was given two years’ probation Wednesday, according to a spokeswoman with the Cook County State’s Attorneys Office in Illinois.
Cook County Judge Carol Howard dismissed more than two dozen felony counts of animal torture and animal cruelty and acquitted him from the charges stemming from his taping of the dogs' genitalia and forcing them to drink lemon juice.
Moore was ultimately convicted of four misdemeanor counts of depiction of animal cruelty after a one-day bench trial and sentencing hearing, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The videos that led police to Moore surfaced on YouTube and Facebook in March of last year.
They showed Moore and a teenage boy ripping duct tape off a dog’s testicles, biting the neck of a dog until it cried, trying to make a dog eat feces and pouring lemon juice down a dog’s throat.
In one video, the pair demonstrated what they called a “dog tornado,” where they hang and spin a dog by the leash for 30 seconds, according to investigators.
In another video, Moore and the teen hide a mother dog’s five puppies and watch as she desperately looks for them.
Most of the dogs were Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes.
The videos were made in Chicago, but Moore had come to Fort Wayne by the time they began making the rounds online.
“We started getting calls from citizens around the country,” Belinda Lewis, director of Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control, said in an interview last year.
Fort Wayne police initially detained Moore, who was then questioned by local Animal Care & Control officers. He was released and returned to Chicago, where police there were waiting to arrest him.
In court Wednesday, Moore apologized for the videos, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I was thinking immaturely. I was thinking childishly. … I’m embarrassed,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
The apology, along with arguments from Moore's defense attorney which depicted him as a "remarkable man," were apparently enough for the judge to allow Moore to avoid jail time.
Last year, an official with Chicago Animal Care and Control told The Journal Gazette the dogs were expected to make a full recovery despite the abuse.
Moore must adhere to a 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew as part of his sentence; the teen with him was sentenced to two years’ probation last summer.
(Journal Gazette - April 12, 2013)
