Nevada: Roy Cozart charged with animal cruelty after video of him brutally beating his Pit Bull is shown to police

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- A Las Vegas man is behind bars after allegedly beating his dog for months.

Kilo, a male pit bull, is now safely in a foster home after Animal Control removed the dog from his owner on Oct. 15. The owner, 30-year-old Roy Cozart, is charged with felony animal cruelty.

Authorities stepped in after a neighbor submitted a cellphone video to police, who say Cozart is the man shown in the footage dragging the dog by its neck out of a pen, then swinging it around high in the air.

The dog is visibly cowering in the video, with its tail between its legs. What's not visible in the video is what the neighbor says happened out of the frame.

He wrote a statement to police describing what he saw when he shot the video on Oct. 8, a week before the dog was removed.

The statement described Cozart beating Kilo with a 6-inch rock after swinging him around and slamming him into a wall. The neighbor stated he told Cozart to stop, but Cozart threatened to beat the neighbor up also.

NEIGHBOR REPEATEDLY REPORTED ABUSE; NOTHING DONE

The neighbor's report on Oct. 8 wasn't the first time he tried to get help for the abused animal.

According to police documents, the witness had been calling Animal Control since August, when he first saw Cozart beat the dog over the head with a hammer handle. 

He also shot another video which shows Cozart pushing the dog around in the back yard.

After neighbors complained YET AGAIN to Animal Control on Oct. 8, authorities came to the house to check on the dog and found cuts and bruises on its face, but they didn't remove the dog from the home for another week. 

"The dog appeared happy, the dog appeared normal, so at that point it wasn't appropriate to remove the dog or file charges," explained Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson.

Eventually more reports convinced District Attorney Wolfson that the dog was indeed being abused, at which point he approved the county's first seizure warrant allowing an animal to be examined by a veterinarian, which revealed abuse.

"I thought this man should be in jail," Wolfson told Action News.

Cozart's wife refused requests for comment, but animal advocate Gina Greison of Nevada Voters For Animals was eager to speak out after petitioning authorities to take action.

 

 

 "We're grateful that the charges have come down...we're going to start a dialogue about how we're going to handle these cases in the future," she said.

If convicted, Cozart could serve up to 5 years in prison and have to pay a $10,000 fine.

(KTNV - Nov 1, 2013)