Pest control franchisee charged with cruelty to animals
CONNECTICUT -- An owner of a local Critter Control franchise has been charged with cruelty to animals after authorities claimed she left a raccoon she had trapped in the back of her truck and went out of town for a week.
The animal died a slow death after surviving for six days “baking in the hot sun with no food or water,” said Thomas Gulluscio, Westerly’s animal control officer.
Christy Clark, 36, of 14 Lorraine Road, Westerly, was charged this month by an officer from the state Department of Environmental Management.
The formal charges came after a neighbor heard the animal crying and scratching from the back of Clark’s Critter Control vehicle in the days after Clark left the raccoon with no food or water.
The neighbor went to the Westerly police station on Sunday, June 9, and talked to Officer Tony Allicchio, expressing concern about the manner in which animals are disposed of at the Lorraine Road location.
Gulluscio said he investigated the incident the next day, nearly a week after Clark left, and found the raccoon dead in the back of the truck. Gulluscio said he sent a report of the incident to the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which passed it along to DEM’s criminal division. Gulluscio said he was informed that the animal had been alive on Sunday but died on Monday.
Clark had reportedly been called to a local home after the residents discovered the raccoon in their house. Clark, who runs a Rhode Island Critter Control franchise, picked up the raccoon. The online advertisement for the company refers to its expertise in dealing with wildlife capture and has a separate section devoted to raccoon problems.
DEM Capt. Jack Mcilmail said the summons was served to Clark on Tuesday, June 11, when she returned home. He did not provide further details, but Gulluscio said that Clark had admitted that she had forgotten about the animal.
Gulluscio said that Clark was charged with misdemeanor counts of unnecessary cruelty to animals and violation of DEM rules for not releasing or euthanizing the animal within a specified amount of time after it was seized.
She is scheduled to appear in 4th Division District Court in Wakefield on July 3.
Clark did not return a phone call to the number listed for her Westerly business on the Critter Control website.
Officials said they did not know if the raccoon had been tested for rabies.
According to the Critter Control website, “when raccoons have made themselves at home in your home, trained professionals are required to safely and humanely get the animals out of your residence. The experts at Critter Control use tactics such as exclusion, trapping and habitat modification to ensure that raccoons will not be able to den into your home again!”
(The Westerly Sun-Jun 28, 2013)
