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Case #10397 Rating: 3.8 out of 5
Dog thrown from balcony
Highland, CA (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Nov 9, 2005
County: San Bernardino
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: Ryan Lee Flores
A man who has voluntarily enrolled in a live-in alcohol treatment program drew five years' probation on Dec 20 for beating his girlfriend and killing a dog.
"He's a binge drinker," defense attorney Stephen Levine said after the sentencing hearing for 26-year-old Ryan Lee Flores, of Highland. "He becomes violent when drinking. He doesn't deny that. He has been in a recovery home for the last two months."
Among the 33 terms of his probation, Flores must complete his six-month rehabilitation program at the MFI Recovery Center in Riverside.
He also must pay $4,675, nearly all of it to replace Lola, a former roommate's fox-face miniature Yorkshire terrier, who was euthanized after suffering a broken back Nov. 9, 2005, in Highland.
Flores was responsible, said his ex-girlfriend, whose name was redacted from court records.
"He went upstairs and opened the balcony sliding glass door, and she believed it was at this time that he threw the dog off the balcony," probation officer Lynne Thornburg wrote in a presentencing report to the court. "He came down the stairs laughing and told her the dog flew and was on Club View Street."
Flores and his then-girlfriend lived together at the time of the incident, but the dog belonged to another woman, who also lived in the house, and who told investigators she had rebuffed Flores when he tried to kiss her while they were driving to a Redlands bar.
While that case was winding through the courts, Flores was arrested in March after deputy sheriffs answered a domestic-violence call at the home he shared with a different woman, court records show.
"She ... stated that they were both intoxicated and both at fault," Thornburg wrote in the presentencing report. "She ... blames herself as much as him."
But in her analysis, Thornburg disagreed with the plea bargain between prosecutors and defense lawyers, who agreed to have Flores complete the rehab program and serve five years' probation.
"The plea agreement gives the defendant the opportunity to receive help for his alcohol abuse but does not include treatment for his sadistic need to control and manipulate victims," Thornburg wrote to Superior Court Judge Michael Dest.
Dest let the plea agreement stand, finding there is a "high probability" that Flores will respond to his in-patient therapy.
A conviction for felony cruelty to animals is typically punished by either three years in prison or three years on probation, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Dwight Moore said.
The deputy district attorney who agreed to the plea bargain recently took a new job in Northern California.
"The bottom line here is: a deputy agreed to something he shouldn't have agreed to," Moore said. "He thought the case had enough weaknesses that he had to do this. My perception is that the case is not perfect, but the case is stronger than it was in his view."
In this case, the former prosecutor ensured that Flores will serve five years' probation with a long list of terms and conditions, Moore said.
"If (Flores) violates any of those conditions in the next five years, he's exposed to three years in state prison," Moore emphasized.
"So the idea is, there's a three-year sword over his head for a long time." References« CA State Animal Cruelty Map
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