Former Anniston restaurateur found guilty in aggravated animal cruelty trial
ALABAMA -- A Calhoun County jury on Friday found a former Anniston restaurant owner guilty of aggravated animal cruelty.
Jurors found David Mogil, former proprietor of Damn Yankees, guilty of that crime after deliberating just over an hour Friday afternoon.
Mogil was indicted by a Calhoun County grand jury in May on the felony charge after his then-girlfriend’s dog, a cocker spaniel named Coco Lily, last year fell from an apartment balcony above his restaurant, Damn Yankees. Mogil’s sentence hearing is set for 10:30 a.m. Sept. 1.
Friday’s continuation of the trial began with a motion for acquittal of the Class C felony charge from Mogil’s defense attorney, Bill Broome.
Broome twice argued the charge should be thrown out because the only “medical expert” in the case, Gadsden veterinarian Ginger Bailey, during testimony on Thursday said she saw no evidence of physical abuse.
“If the vet didn’t see it, it’s not there,” Broome said, “and if it’s not there, it doesn’t meet the statute” under which his client was charged.
That statute says a person must cause “intensive or prolonged pain or serious physical injury” to an animal, or cause its death.
Circuit Judge Debra Jones denied both motions Broome made, ruling jurors should decide the outcome of the trial.
Mogil, who testified in his own defense on Friday, contends evidence of abuse wasn’t there because it never happened. Witnesses who testified that it had based on what they heard outside his restaurant on Nov. 29, he said, were “making it up.”
According to his account of that morning’s events, Mogil had to let Alison Johnson’s two dogs out onto the balcony of his second story apartment. The dogs were trained to relieve themselves there.
He claimed Johnson was his fiance at that time, and was living with him in the apartment.
When Mogil tried to get the cocker spaniel out of his apartment and onto the balcony, she bit him on the hand, he said.
Broome submitted a photo of a wound on Mogil’s right hand to the jury for examination. Two of the state’s witnesses denied ever seeing that wound.
After it bit him, Mogil said, he grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck and carried it out onto the porch.
Mogil said that after Johnson’s dogs had defecated on the balcony, he unraveled a hose to spray the surface off.
The hose “had a shard of ice” in it, he said, so he began striking the hose on the balcony.
Broome asked his client several times if he ever hit the cocker spaniel with the hose. Each time, Mogil denied having done so.
According to Assistant District Attorney Randy Moeller, witness testimony proved that, “circumstantially, Mr. Mogil did beat” the cocker spaniel with a hose.
“Three witnesses said they saw that hose come up, and every time it went down — yelping,” Moeller said during his closing argument. “He was beating that dog.”
That consistency among witnesses counts, he said, allowing the jury to believe those accounts.
Moeller told the jury he knew he couldn’t prove the dog had suffered serious physical injury or death, two requirements of the law under which Mogil had been charged.
“We are saying ... there was intensive pain,” the prosecutor said, referencing testimony of two witnesses that the dog was “slow” and required pain medication for a week after it fell from the roof.
“We’re disappointed,” Broome said after the verdict was read, “but we respect the jury’s decision.”
That decision wasn’t an easy one to make, one juror, who did not want to be named, said after being released from the courtroom.
“I don’t feel good about it,” she said, but witness’ testimony convinced her and other jurors to convict Mogil — a unanimous decision. “I wish that day had never happened,” she said of the day the dog fell.
Broome said he was particularly disappointed his motions for acquittal were denied, in light of what he felt was a lack of physical evidence. He plans to help Mogil appeal the court’s decision.
“I feel very confident it’ll be reversed,” he said. “We’ll see what an appellate court thinks.”
(Anniston Star - Aug 7, 2015)
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