Instead, what Kevin Lantz decided to do was move out, close the door and lock his animals inside the boiling hot house to slowly die, one by one.
Police found two of the dogs locked in a filthy, cramped bathroom. Two others were locked inside a hot garage which was covered in four inches of feces.
"While there, I could see a gray Weimeraner dog roaming the residence. A cat was locked in a SE bedroom. There was a lot of feces and miscellaneous junk scattered throughout the main living area," Animal Control Officer Peggy Larson said in an incident report.
Sergeant Lanier found a window unlocked and opened it. Larson took custody of the cat and the dog, who was reported as skinny, dehydrated and covered in ticks.
Two more dogs were recovered inside the residence. The first was a black and white Chihuahua, who was reported as extremely thin and covered in ticks. The second was was a small brown dog, also very thin.
When Sergeant Lanier made contact with Lantz by phone, Lantz said he used to live at the residence but had moved to an apartment where he was unable to take his dogs.
Lantz said the utilities had been shut off about six months earlier. Lantz said he had been throwing food on the floor and water inside pots for the dogs. He admitted to locking dogs in the bathroom and in the garage.
Kevin claimed that he was just too busy at Taco Mayo to find homes for his animals or to drive them to the shelter and surrender them or to simply open the door and turn them loose, saying, "I know the dogs should've been taken out, but I was caught up with work."
Kevin was charged with Felony Animal Cruelty and taken to jail. Really, they should have transported him back to this hellhole, thrown him inside and locked the door.
It appears that Kevin Lantz took a plea deal that was offered to him. And it's a pretty sweet deal for a POS like Kevin, considering the suffering he intentionally heaped upon these poor animals.
Kevin was given six years probation and as soon as that probation is over with, the case will be entered in as Dismissed. So he can tell everyone he was never convicted of animal cruelty. And he'll be right - in a legal sense.
Why would prosecutors be so lazy as to let him off like this? Look at the photos. The evidence is right there. He chose to leave these animals locked inside a house with no air-conditioning, inches of feces on the ground, no access to water. A reasonable person would know that these animals are going to suffer and slowly die, one by one.
Grady County.... you can do better.
Gender: Male
Race: White
Height: 5 ft 11 in
Weight: 161 lbs
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Blue
Birth Date: 1/6/1988
OK DOC#: 725871
Court: GRADY COUNTY COURT
Offense: CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
Conviction date: N/A (PENDING DEFERRED)
Term: 6 Years
Term code: P&PDEF*
Sentence (probation) begins: 9/9/2015
Status: Active
Probation scheduled to end: 09/09/2021
*Deferred Adjudication
A deferred adjudication in Oklahoma (commonly referred to as a deferred sentence) occurs when a defendant enters a plea of guilty to the crime or crimes as charged but is not formally sentenced. The court agrees to "put off" sentencing to a later date provided the defendant agrees to certain terms and conditions required by the court.
Deferred adjudications benefit criminals like Kevin Lantz Jr. who, as long as he doesn't get arrested before 09/09/2021, gets to have his Animal Cruelty case dismissed -- as if he had never abandoned his animals to slowly die, one by one, of starvation and dehydration in a closed-up, un-air-conditioned house full of trash, urine and feces.
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