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A movie animator charged with bludgeoning his neighbor’s German shepherd to death with a hammer changed his not guilty plea in the middle of his trial last week.

After jurors were shown home security video showing him shooting and beating the muzzled German shepherd, Young Song, 42, switched his plea to no contest, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Young was sentenced to a year in jail and three years of probation. He was also banned from owning any animals for 10 years.

The change of pleas was made over the objection of prosecutors, who were seeking the maximum four-year sentence.

In the video, the 14-month-old shepherd being is shot and beaten by Song, who then is believed to have hidden the dog’s body, prosecutors said. The body of the dog, who belonged to Song’s next door neighbor, was never found.

Prosecutors say Song climbed a fence and entered his neighbor’s yard, shot the dog with a pellet gun, then returned a few minutes later and started hitting dog with a hammer.

Song is an animator who has worked for DreamWorks. His credits include ”Kung Fu Panda,” “Shark Tale,” “Bee Movie” and “Madagascar 2.”

Officials said Song’s reasons for attacking the dog weren’t entirely clear, but they suspected the dog could have been getting on his property through a hole in the fence.

Andrew David Thompson, the former Michigan State University medical student who admitted killing about a dozen Italian greyhound puppies, was sentenced yesterday to probation.

Thompson, who admitted to beating, kicking and throwing the puppies against walls when he became angry with them — and buying new ones to replace those who died — will serve five years of probation.

At a hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court, Judge Paula Manderfield rejected prosecutors’ request for a prison sentence of two to four years, the Lansing State Journal reported.

“I am disgusted and embarrassed and have so much remorse for what happened,” Thompson told Manderfield during the hearing, which his mother, father and other supporters attended. “I’m shocked I even let it get to this point.”

Thompson pleaded guilty in April to three counts of animal killing. Two of the charges were for killing two different dogs while he lived in East Lansing. The third charge was for killing nine dogs when he lived in Meridian Township.

Stacia Buchanan, Thompson’s attorney, argued that his offense was a ”property crime”  and that he had no prior criminal record. She said he has mental health issues for which he hasn’t receive treatment.

Under the sentence, he will.

The judge ordered Thompson to undergo mental health treatment, perform 400 hours of community service and not own or care for any animals while on probation.

Technically, Manderfield sentenced him to a year in jail, but she gave him credit for the 107 days he has served and suspended the remainder of the jail term pending successful completion of probation .

Manderfield said she didn’t believe a prison sentence would serve anybody’s interests. Probation, she told Thompson, would allow her to “always hold the hammer of prison over your head… I’m not convinced society would be served spending thousands of dollars to incarcerate you for two to four years,” she said.

(Photo: Paul Henderson / Lansing State Journal)

A Florida man will serve 40 days in jail for tying a 30-pound dumbbell to a dog’s neck and tossing him in the river.

Willie T. Bell, 41, of Palmetto, told police he was trying to make the dog stronger.

He pleaded no contest to the third-degree felony earlier this week, the Bradenton Herald reported.

Police in April spotted the two-year-old pit bull mix, named Blackie, in the Manatee River, not far from where Bell was fishing.

According to Palmetto police officer Micah Mathews’ report, the dogs snout was sticking up as it tried to tread water.

“Mr. Bell said he was trying to make the dog stronger,” Mathews wrote.
“The dog was unable to touch the ground and was not able to move the weight,” the officer wrote. “When I arrived I could see only the nose of the dog out of the water.”

On the officer’s request, Bell brought the dog to shore. Bell told the officer the dog had been swimming in place for about 15 minutes.

Mathews asked Bell the same question that’s probably running through your mind right now: Would he like to be anchored to a dumbbell and left in the water like that? Bell replied, “Hell no,” the police report states.

Bell was not the dog’s owner, animal control officials said.

The dog was returned to its original owner and animal control officials said it suffered no lasting physical damage.

The owner of a Deer Park, Ill., animal shelter was sentenced in court Tuesday to 30 months in custody for running what the judge called “a concentration camp for dogs.”

More than a dozen dogs starved to death while at the Muddy Paws animal shelter, operated by Diane Eldrup.

The 49-year-old woman faced up to five years in prison for 18 counts of animal torture, and up to three years in prison for 18 counts of aggravated animal cruelty.  A jury convicted her of the charges last month.

Lake County Circuit Judge James Booras sentenced Eldrup to 30 months of probation to serve at the same time as the 30 months of “periodic imprisonment,”  the Chicago Sun-Times reported

“It takes a certain mean spirit, a certain meanness of heart,” Booras said. “She was running a concentration camp for dogs, taking those dogs in so that she could kill them.”

A jury heard evidence that Eldrup allowed 14 dogs to die of starvation and dehydration while they were under her care at the Deer Park animal shelter. Their rotting carcasses and four live dogs were found at the facility in December, 2010.

Evidence was presented at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing that — in addition to the 14 dogs that died of starvation and dehydration at the facility – eight to 10 more carcasses were found at Muddy Paws after the snow melted.

“The defendant has been hiding and killing dogs far longer than the evidence of trial,” one of the prosecutor said. “The state is asking for a prison sentence. She starved them to death. She prolonged their suffering. This was a torture camp for animals and she was a prison guard.”

Her defense attorney said Eldrup has has obsessive-compulsive disorder and a depressive disorder and was undergoing a divorce and having business difficulties.

Booras also ordered Eldrup to perform 200 hours of community service  and fined her $1,000.

Under her periodic imprisonment, she will be kept in the custody of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in a residential facility next to the jail, and will be released from custody for counseling, court obligations and work.

A 78-year-old North Carolina man described as a “legend” in the dogfighting world was sentenced today to five years in prison, the maximum a federal judge could impose.

Harry Hargrove of Duplin County was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Raleigh on dogfighting charges he pleaded guilty to earlier this year.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence longer than recommended federal guidelines of 10 months to 16 months.

A federal motion says Hargrove has been involved in dog-fighting in the South for about 40 years. He told Judge Terrence Boyle he once had more than 100 fighting dogs, but he’d cut back to 35 by the time he was arrested.

Police found jumper cables used to electrocute dogs on the property, as well as a blood-stained fighting pit and other tools usually used to condition dogs for fighting.

Hargrove was arrested last April after a lengthy investigation, during which he sold the dog at left, Hurricane Hugo, to an undercover officer.

In addition to Hargrove’s five-year sentence, the judge mandated three additional years of supervision after he is released.

The former supervisor of a local SPCA in Texas was found guilty yesterday of allowing her 5-month-old German shepherd puppy to starve to death inside her Plano apartment.

Alicia Marie Martin, while qualifying for a two-year state prison sentence, received three years probation, a $500 fine and four days in the Collin County jail — the four days before Thanksgiving, the Dallas Morning News reported.

“I’m sending you there so that hopefully, when Thanksgiving rolls around each year, you will thank God that you are not incarcerated in jail somewhere,” State District Judge Mark J. Rusch said. “I’m not interested in crushing you … I am interested in your rehabilitation. I am interested in you knowing this was unacceptable behavior.”

As part of her sentence, she is forbidden to own a pet.

Martin, the former supervisor at the McKinney Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was fired after her arrest in March.

According to prosecutors, Martin, 24 and a single mother, let the puppy starve to death inside her waterlogged apartment. She adopted the dog as a Christmas gift for her daughter, now 3, but the puppy became ill. She said couldn’t afford to take the dog to a veterinarian and was too embarrassed to take him to the local SPCA  where she worked for help.

When the electricity was cut off she temporarily moved to a hotel and left the dog at the apartment, returning once a day to let him out of his crate  and feed him. A veterinarian who testified, however, said the emaciated animal had no signs of food or fat in his system and was covered with open bedsores.