var _sf_startpt=(new Date()).getTime() Pet-Abuse.Com - Animal Abuse Case Details: Neighbor's dog killed with 13 machete blows - Hana, HI (US)
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Case ID: 16860
Classification: Stabbing
Animal: dog (non pit-bull)
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Abuse was retaliation against animal's bad behavior
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Attorneys/Judges
Judge(s): Douglas Ige



CONVICTED: Was justice served?

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Neighbor's dog killed with 13 machete blows
Hana, HI (US)

Incident Date: Monday, Jan 29, 2007
County: Maui

Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted

Defendant/Suspect: Sylvain Pilon

Case Updates: 2 update(s) available

A Hana man is facing criminal charges after allegedly killing his neighbor's dog with a machete and burying the animal last week.
Sylvain Pilon, 46, previously had made complaints about the neighbor's dogs barking and had been ordered by a judge to stay away from the neighbor, said police Lt. Michael Kaho'ohano-hano, commander of the Hana Patrol District.

Questioned by police after neighbor Ken Yasso discovered the dog missing the morning of Jan. 29, Pilon admitted he had gone into Yasso's property on Uakea Road the night before and killed the dog with a machete, Kaho'ohanohano said. He said Pilon also admitted burying the large dog in his backyard.

Arrested that day for allegedly violating a temporary restraining order imposed last May to keep him from harassing his neighbor, Pilon also was charged with simple trespassing, cruelty to animals and fourth-degree criminal property damage.

"It's sad," Yasso said Wednesday. "He killed one of the best."

Yasso said he had trained the 1?-year-old male shepherd/heeler mix to bark but not bite. The dog was just old enough to begin to hunt, Yasso said.

At an arraignment on Jan. 30, Pilon requested a jury trial in 2nd Circuit Court on the misdemeanor and lesser charges. He was being held in lieu of $6,000 bail at the Maui Community Correctional Center.

While not discussing the details of Pilon's case, Maui Humane Society Executive Director Jocelyn Bouchard said the incident highlights the need for felony prosecution in some cases of animal cruelty.

"If there's anything good that could come of such a horrific case, this is really pointing out the need to have felony status," she said. "Right now, this sort of crime is a misdemeanor. As such, it's not really taken that seriously by the police or potentially the prosecutors. That's our concern."

A misdemeanor conviction carries a potential sentence of a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. A Class C felony carries a potential five years in prison and a possible $10,000 fine.

Bouchard said a bill introduced this session in the Legislature would establish a felony offense of aggravated cruelty to animals. Someone convicted of the crime could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

"Our concern is this level of brutality," Bouchard said. "This level of anger that would result in such brutality is not species specific."

She said studies have shown a correlation between violence to animals and violence to people.

"Some people will say, 'It's only a dog,'" Bouchard said. "Our point is this type of anger has a connection to people as well."

Court records show that during a May 2 court hearing, Pilon was ordered not to harass Yasso, who filed a request for a restraining order. A judge granted a three-year restraining order.

In court documents, Yasso described incidents in April and earlier involving Pilon trespassing onto Yasso's property to harass his dog. In one case, Yasso said Pilon had a stick and confronted Yasso's 12-year-old daughter, who began crying.

On Jan. 29, Yasso noticed the dog was missing at 6:30 a.m., according to court records. He told police he found blood covering the floorboard of the dog house and the ground beneath his truck. Yasso followed a trail of blood that led to a rock wall on the west side of his property.

Yasso told police he suspected Pilon took the dog and said he had heard his dogs barking during the night.

Yasso said he regretted not going out to check on the dogs, including the sister of the dog who was killed.

When officers questioned Pilon that morning in his backyard, he said he had entered Yasso's property between 7 and 8 p.m. "when he thought it would be a safe time," according to court documents.

Pilon said he approached a dog in the center of the property "but decided not to kill it because there was no space, no room for him to swing the machete."

He said he then walked to a dog at the back of the property. As he approached, "the dog started to run around and tried to get away from him," court records say.

He told police "he struck the dog several times on the head, killing it." Pilon said he then dragged the dog to his property to bury it, according to court documents.

Yasso said the dog, which had been chained in the yard, had its teeth and jaw cut. The dog was stuffed in two tires wrapped with wire and covered with dirt and trash when family members found it in Pilon's yard, Yasso said.

"I was crying, everybody was crying," he said, as he carried his dog back to his yard.

Afterward, he said he could see areas of flattened vegetation on his 2-acre property where he suspects Pilon had been hiding to cause his dogs to bark.

"It was a buildup of things," Yasso said. "It never dawned on me the thing would escalate."


Case Updates

A man convicted this week of killing a dog in Hawaii apparently plans to spend some of the next year in the Montreal area - after a judge temporarily banished him from that U.S. state.

Sylvain Pilon, 46, had been held at Maui Community Correctional Centre in lieu of $6,000 U.S. bail since Jan. 30.

Wailuku District Judge Douglas Ige convicted Pilon on Tuesday of cruelty to animals and two lesser offences, all related to a lengthy dispute over a neighbour's barking dogs.

After Pilon showed the judge an airline ticket for Montreal, Ige sentenced Pilon to time already served and a year's probation.

He also sent Pilon into exile - instructing him to use the ticket and not return to Hawaii during his probation without special court permission.

While on trial in May, Pilon admitted killing a neighbour's year-old shepherd/heeler mix with 13 machete blows.

If Pilon is a Canadian citizen, nothing bars him from returning to Canada, Erik Paradis of Canada Border Services Agency said yesterday.

"Any Canadian citizen can enter Canada as a right," Paradis said, adding he was "speaking generally" and not about Pilon specifically.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada "isn't able to provide you with any information on this individual," including whether he is a Canadian citizen, spokesperson Stephane Malepart said. He cited Canadian privacy law.

Pilon was arrested Jan. 29, after the dog was reported missing by one of his neighbours in Hana, Hawaii. The neighbour had obtained a three-year restraining order against Pilon in May 2006.

"They should keep him in Hawaii. We don't need him here," Pierre Barnoti of the Canadian SPCA (Montreal) said.

Pilon "isn't known to us," he added.

Penalties in the U.S. for animal-cruelty offences are generally stronger than in Canada, Barnoti said: "The laws punishing cruelty to animals here haven't changed in 107 years." The maximum penalty under Canada's Criminal Code is a $2,000 fine and six months imprisonment, Barnoti said, but "I don't recall in 13 years anybody being put in jail in Canada for animal cruelty." "People who are cruel to animals are often disturbed people - and dangerous to humans, too," he added, declaring that Pilon would not be permitted to adopt a pet from the SPCA.

The Hawaiian judge called Pilon's exile "a proposal that works for everybody," according to reporter Lila Fujimoto of the Maui News.

"Hopefully, we won't have any more problems," Ige said in court. "That's what the court wants - some peace in that community." Michael O'Sullivan, executive director of the Humane Society of Canada, said Montreal police "should meet this man at the airport and plaster the neighbourhood where he chooses to live with his picture" and a description of the offence.

No way, Montreal police Constable Robert Mansueto said.

"The laws here don't permit us to do something like that at all."
Source: vachss.com - Jul 21, 2010
Update posted on Nov 15, 2010 - 12:50PM 
A man convicted of animal cruelty for killing his neighbor's dog in Hana was released from jail Tuesday after agreeing to leave the state and showing that he had an airline ticket to Montreal.

Sylvain Pilon, 46, would need to obtain a court order to return to Hawaii while he is on probation for one year, said Wailuku District Judge Douglas Ige.

In sentencing Pilon, the judge said he had to balance fairness for Pilon with the safety of the Hana community.

"This is a proposal that I think works for everyone," Ige said. "Hopefully, we won't have any more problems. And that's what the court wants �" some peace in that community."

The judge gave Pilon credit for 169 days he had spent in jail since his arrest Jan. 29.

That morning, Hana resident Ken Yasso noticed the dog named Jacks was missing and followed a trail of blood from his yard to Pilon's property, where the dead dog was hidden under debris.

Questioned by police, Pilon admitted going onto Yasso's property the night before after hearing dogs barking and using a machete to kill the animal. He told police he decided not to kill another dog on the property because there wasn't enough room to swing the machete.

During his trial in May, Pilon testified that he hit the male dog 13 times with the machete before dragging the dead animal to his property and burying it in two tires.

In court Tuesday, Pilon said he had called the Maui Humane Society and police to report excessive barking by his neighbor's dogs without result.

"It's not only the noise that is disturbing me, it's the distress of the animals," Pilon said. "There was a lot of animal cruelty; it was terrible. I could not live with that next to my door. I decided to do something about it."

In a separate court hearing earlier this month, Yasso was convicted on four violations of allowing an animal nuisance for dogs that barked excessively.

But at Pilon's sentencing, Aimee Anderson, director of animal control for the Maui Humane Society, said officers had investigated Pilon's complaints about animal cruelty and determined they were unfounded.

Anderson said the dog-killing by Pilon was the worst she had seen during nearly 20 years of investigating animal cruelty cases.

"The extreme violence that Mr. Pilon has demonstrated is very concerning," Anderson said.

Had a new law creating a felony offense of animal cruelty been in effect at the time, she said, Pilon could have faced more serious punishment for the crime.

Anderson and Deputy Prosecutor Marie Kosegarten said Pilon appeared to have planned what he did.

"His actions on that date, where he butchered this 14-year-old girl's pet dog, just show how cruel, how calculated and how dangerous he really is," Kosegarten said. "In his mind, what he did was justice, and that's frightening."

She had recommended a two-year jail term for Pilon, who was found guilty of violating a temporary restraining order, cruelty to animals and fourth-degree criminal property damage.

In May 2006, a court had granted Yasso a three-year restraining order against Pilon, who was ordered not to harass his neighbor. Yasso had described earlier incidents of Pilon trespassing onto Yasso's property to harass his dog and his daughter.

Deputy Public Defender Shelly Miyashiro asked that Pilon be given credit for the jail time he had already served. She said he was prepared to pay $753 in restitution and planned to leave the state after being released from jail Tuesday.

Earlier this month, Pilon's wife, Bonnie Kerr-Pilon, testified in a case against Yasso, who was found guilty of four counts of animal nuisance for excessive dog barking on four dates in March and August 2006, said Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Goya.

A conviction for the violation requires evidence that a dog was heard barking for 10 minutes continuously or for 20 minutes intermittently.

Yasso was ordered to a pay a $400 fine �" the minimum of $100 for each conviction �" following the trial before Judge Eric Romanchak.

Ige said he was aware of the excessive dog barking convictions.

"I still can't condone what you did," the judge told Pilon. "It was a totally senseless act."
Source: honoluluadvertiser.com - Jul 18, 2007
Update posted on Nov 15, 2010 - 12:48PM 

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