INDIANA -- The mother of the man accused of allowing his pet pit bulls to get loose and attack two people said Friday during his probation revocation violation hearing that her son’s not the “monster” police make him out to be.
Cory Balser‘s family filled the first row of the gallery in Tippecanoe Superior 1 Friday morning and watched as he admitted to four violations of his probation from three 2009 convictions. As a result, he’ll serve the remaining three years of a prison sentence, which had been suspended.
Wearing a blue jail uniform, his hands chained to his waist, Balser spoke in quiet tones to his nearby family. After the hearing, Lois Balser said her son had been targeted by police after he was arrested and entered the judicial system as a teenager.
“I don’t think it’s fair that he’s going to jail for my dog biting my husband,” she said, her voice choked with emotion after the hearing. “They’re making my son out to be a monster, and he’s not.”
Balser, 22, found himself back in the public’s eye and the court’s scrutiny after his two pit bull terriers attacked and injured Balser’s father last fall.
Less than a month later, the dogs attacked and injured Balser’s 67-year-old neighbor and her dog.
For one of his pit bulls, Chewy, the Dec. 3 attack was his third attack on a person since October 2012. When police caught Chewy a few days after that attack, he was euthanized.
Those attacks generated two additional charges, failure to restrain his dog resulting in bodily injury, Class A misdemeanors. Those charges are in Tippecanoe Superior Court 5.
But the probation violations Balser admitted to in Tippecanoe Superior 1 had nothing to do with the dogs’ attacks. Instead, it had to do with four incidents that occurred in 2012 and 2013 before the attacks.
Balser admitted violating his probation on three occasions when he was driving without being licensed. He also admitted a fourth violation in October 2013 in which he was in possession of alcohol. Some of the conditions of his probation are that he not commit felonies or misdemeanors and not drink or be around alcohol, according to information presented during the hearing.
Judge Randy Williams ordered Balser to serve the balance of his suspended sentence from his 2009 convictions for conspiracy to commit burglary, a Class C felony, and auto theft and theft, Class D felonies.
In 2009, Williams sentenced Balser to 10 years, with four years suspended. With time already served and time off for good behavior, he was released from prison in June 2010. He violated probation in 2011 and went back to prison again before being released in February 2012 to serve his remaining three years on probation. Those three years were revoked Friday.
(JC Online - Feb. 14, 2014)
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.