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Case #15206 Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Dog suffers puncture wound from nailed fence
Middletown, NJ (US)Incident Date: Sunday, Feb 1, 2009
County: Monmouth
Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: David Lench
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
A New Jersey man faces an animal cruelty charge after officials said he drove nails through a neighbor's picket fence.
One of the neighbor's three German shepherds suffered bloody puncture wounds.
That led the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to charge David Lench.
The 50-year-old Middletown resident was fined $1,000 in May for leaving mothballs along the same fence. Lench had pleaded guilty to trying to harm a dog and puppy.
The dogs' owner, Michael Flynn, and the county's SPCA police chief Victor Amato, hammered the 3-inch nails flat to protect the dogs.
Lench is scheduled to appear in Municipal Court on Feb. 25.
Case UpdatesA Middletown man was sentenced today to 15 days in Monmouth County jail after admitting to charges related to injuries inflicted on his neighbors German Shepherd.
The dog, which belonged to Michael and Colleen Flynn, suffered puncture wounds inside his nose from 18 nails placed along the fence between his owners' property and that of David Lench.
"What (Lench) did was he strategically placed the nails all along the fence, so when the dogs would play around, they would get hung up on the nails. They could have gouged their eyes out, that's how he placed them," said Victor "Buddy" Amato, chief of police for the Monmouth County Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Amato treated puncture wounds inside the injured dog's nose before following a trail of blood to the Flynns' fence in February.
Lench pleaded guilty to three charges stemming from the incident, including tormenting a living animal, purposely causing injury to an animal, and abusing an animal, Amato said.
Lench was also ordered to pay $4,000 in fines by Municipal Court Judge Richard Thompson, Amato said.
This wasn't the first time Lench had been convicted of animal cruelty. Last July, he faced $1,000 in fines after he pleaded guilty to charges of animal abuse, Amato said. He had tried to poison his neighbor's three dogs with over 300 moth balls.
Lench's lawyer, Michael V. Gilberti, of Red Bank, was not available for comment today.
Colleen Flynn could not explain why Lench hurt her dogs again.
"He has never complained about the dogs to us," she said. "If they were bothering him, all he had to do was say something." | Source: Star-Ledger - April 1, 2009
Update posted on Nov 1, 2010 - 11:33AM |
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