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| Christopher Pope, left, 25, of Danville, waits to be taken back to the Boyle County Detention Center following his arraignment on felony gun charges Tuesday in Boyle District Court. Photo: Todd Kleffman |
Pope was also hit Tuesday with new misdemeanor animal cruelty charges stemming from the raid on a home on Old Shakertown Road on July 28 when a dozen dogs — 11 Presa Canarios and a husky — in his care were found in "deplorable" conditions and impounded by authorities.
Danville police returned to the home with a search warrant later that day and found four handguns, cash and white powder residue, leading to the felony gun charges.
Boyle District Judge Jeff Dotson set Pope's bond at $250,000 cash. Pope was returned to the Boyle County Detention Center, where he has been held since his arrest Monday.
Pope, 25, of Danville, was to be arraigned this morning on the new animal cruelty charges, along with multiple violations for failing to license and vaccinate the animals, said Lynne Dean, the assistant Boyle county attorney. He is also scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday on the gun charges.
The new charges Pope faces related to the dogs are the same ones he faced in June when a house on John Bowling Court caught fire and three of his Presa Canarios were found dead at the scene and the other dogs found on the property were impounded.
After the 12 misdemeanor animal cruelty charges were reduced to violations of a county ordinance, Pope entered a plea deal with prosecutors in July which allowed him to get his dogs back if he paid nearly $6,000 in restitution, pleaded guilty to 24 counts of failure to license and vaccinate the dogs and $2,000 in fines.
Upon regaining possession of seven dogs on July 22, Pope moved them to a kennel on Tom Hackley Road in Lincoln County, but they escaped five days later and mauled Loretta Stevens, who lives nearby. Pope was charged with harboring vicious animals and animal cruelty in that case and has a pretrial conference set for Aug. 27 in Lincoln District Court.
Danville police arrested Pope on July 28 on the Lincoln County charges at the home on Old Shakertown Road, where they found a dozen more dogs, along with guns, cash and a white substance. The dogs were impounded immediately, but no charges were filed against Pope until Danville police issued a warrant for his arrest last Thursday.
Police also arrested Pope's girlfriend, Brittany Record, and another woman, Jackie Luttrell, on charges of hindering prosecution. Record and Luttrell remained in jail Tuesday under $2,000 cash bonds. They are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Boyle District Court, Dean said.
The dogs involved in the attack on Stevens were determined to be vicious and euthanized in Lincoln County on Monday. The 12 dogs taken from the Old Shakertown Road home remain housed at the Danville-Boyle County Humane Society. Dean said the fate of those dogs could be discussed at today's hearing.
"There is a lot of pressure to do something. There have been some rescue groups offering to take them. I think there's a good chance the matter will come up, but I don't know that any decisions will be made," Dean said.
Pope was convicted of trafficking in cocaine in Boyle and Jessamine counties in 2010 and sentenced to five years in prison. He is currently under indictment in Fayette County on charges of conspiracy to traffic in oxycodone and being a persistent felony offender.
(Central KY News - Aug 12, 2015)
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