CONVICTED: Was justice served?
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Case #1216 Rating: 4.0 out of 5
Dog fighting Pittsburgh, PA (US)Incident Date: Monday, Mar 31, 1997 County: Allegheny
Charges: Felony CTA Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: Jeffrey Knox
A North Side man who escaped any serious prison time for aggravated assault convictions is going to a state prison for a crime against a dog. Police said defendant Jeffrey Knox unleashed his pit bull on a partially blind Rottweiler on the North Side.
Surrounded in court by animal rights advocates and a prosecutor who loves animals, Jeffrey Knox, 30, denied yesterday that he deserved to be portrayed as the kingpin of dogfighting on the North Side.
"I love dogs ... I have never been to a dogfight," Knox told Common Pleas Judge W. Terrence O'Brien at his sentencing.
Noting that Knox had escaped lengthy sentences through plea bargains, O'Brien sentenced him to two to seven years in prison for cruelty to animals.
The charge arose out of an incident last April in which police said Knox unleashed his pit bull on a partially blind Rottweiler named Gunther in the 200 block of Carrington Street.
When the case was tried Feb. 2, it took the jury just 30 minutes to convict Knox of a felony charge involving staging an animal fight.� Knox's attorney, Carl Marcus, showed a petition signed by 200 of Knox's friends who supported him.
But Assistant District Attorney Debbie Jugan, who loves dogs so much that she recently adopted one in another case, called Knox a "roving ambassador for anarchy."
To demonstrate the cruelty of animal fighting, Jugan arranged for an injured pit bull named Kincaid to be brought to the Allegheny County Courthouse. But the judge wouldn't allow the dog into the courtroom, so it had to wait out in the hallway.
Jugan did show the judge two charts that detailed Knox's prior criminal history and the minimal amount of time he had spent in jail.� Although Knox had multiple convictions for aggravated and simple assault and was on probation for a drug charge, he spent only 11.2 days in jail on each charge, the charts showed.
Inside the courtroom, as she made her arguments for a stiff sentence, Jugan called as a witness Patty Garshak, who adopted Gunther and took him to her farm in Finleyville, Washington County, when he was in very poor health.� "He is one healthy fellow now," Garshak told the judge.�
The pit bull, though, died later. References |