Animal activists seek to bar woman from owning pets
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/p...56/1023/NEWS07
:mad: :( :rolleyes: :mad: :(
Animal activists seek to bar woman from owning pets
It's the law
A national animal-welfare group is asking Putnam's district attorney to try to bar a Mahopac woman charged with animal cruelty from owning pets if she is convicted.
According to state law: "The court may ... order that the convicted person ... shall not own, harbor, or have custody or control of any other animals, other than farm animals, for a period of time which the court deems reasonable."
A national animal-welfare group wants a Mahopac woman banned from owning any more pets if she is convicted of animal-cruelty charges she now faces.
Daniel Paden of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote yesterday to Putnam County District Attorney Kevin Wright about the case against Judy Picconi, 64, saying the organization suspects she may be an "animal hoarder," someone who obsessively keeps more animals than he or she can care for.
Carmel police charged Picconi with 13 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty on April 5 after an arrest earlier that day accusing her of driving while intoxicated.
"She was remanded to the county correctional facility after her (DWI) arrest and she made it known to us she she couldn't make bail and that there was no one to care for her animals," Carmel police Lt. Brian Karst said. "We knew that our animal control officers had some outstanding issues with her regarding unlicensed dogs. A judge gave us a warrant to enter the residence, secure any unlicensed dogs and check on other animals."
When police searched Picconi's house at 197 Lake Drive, they found nine dogs, three cats and a parakeet living in what they described as "deplorable and unsanitary conditions." Police also found two dead dogs, a dead cat and several exotic birds in various states of decomposition.
She was also charged with six counts of having unlicensed dogs, a violation.
The prosecutor said the case was under review. "We are always happy to have input from persons or organizations that are concerned with ethical treatment of animals," Wright said. "We don't know enough about the facts of the pending case to make a judgment, but, on the general issue, we certainly take these types of cases quite seriously."
Picconi's attorney, Gary P. Bogosian, did not return a message left at his Carmel office late yesterday afternoon.
Paden said readers of The Journal News forwarded to PETA an article on Picconi's arrest, and the group decided to write to the prosecutor. Specifically, the group asks Wright to seek to bar Picconi from owning household pets if convicted. Under the state's Agriculture and Marketing laws, the court could issue such an order upon conviction.
In November, a 35-year-old Yonkers mother of four pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, for subjecting her children to dangerous conditions by harboring more than 100 animals..
