Puppy repeatedly slammed on ground
New Port Richey, FL (US)Incident Date: Saturday, Nov 20, 2004
County: Pasco
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Curtis Charles Guy
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
Curtis Charles Guy, 24, was arrested March 8, 2005, this time on charges of grand theft and exploitation of the elderly. Pasco County Sheriff's deputies give the following account of a March 3 incident:
Guy and his girlfriend, whom the report did not identify, took his friend's mother to an Amscot check-cashing store to cash her $730 Social Security check. The elderly woman put the money in an envelope inside her purse. Afterward, they drove her to the Kash n' Karry on Little Road to do some grocery shopping.
The woman said Guy asked her to look at some groceries she might be interested in buying, and while her back was turned, she thinks he went into her purse and took $360. She realized the cash was missing on the way home.
When the woman told her son, he confronted Guy and asked him to empty his pockets. Guy jumped into his girlfriend's Pontiac Grand Am and sped out of the driveway, hitting two parked pickup trucks on his way out, a Sheriff's Office report said. The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the crash as a hit and run.
On Tuesday, Guy met with Det. Denton Steele at the Sheriff's Office. Guy admitted he took $150 from the purse because he was desperate, and spent the money for "food and such," Steele reported.
Guy was in the news last year after deputies accused him of giving a 7-week-old puppy a concussion, a broken jaw and two skull fractures on Nov. 20. Deputies said he grabbed his girlfriend by the throat and pushed her to the ground during a fight, then he repeatedly slammed their puppy on the ground while the girlfriend, 18-year-old Billie Jo Wyatt, begged him to stop.
After that arrest, Guy was released from the county jail on $10,500 bond, facing charges of felony cruelty to animals and misdemeanor battery. He pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.
The pit-bull mix, Roxy, recovered and was adopted by a woman in St. Pete Beach, who renamed her Susie. "She's doing exceptionally well," Donna Hamilton said Wednesday. "She flies out that doggy door. She runs in the yard. She plays. She is truly a wonderful, loving, gentle little dog."
On Wednesday (March 9, 2005), Guy was being in the held the county jail again, this time on $25,000 bail.
His criminal record is lengthy. Guy left state prison in August after serving nearly three years for robbery and aggravated assault. In May 2000, he tried to rob a New Port Richey gas station he had been fired from a week earlier. In November that year, he flashed a knife at Kash n' Karry employees who encountered him walking toward the front of the store with two 12-packs of beer about 4 a.m. - two hours after alcohol sales were cut off. His record also includes convictions for grand theft, criminal mischief and battery.
But Guy, of 8325 Emmons Ave., told the Times in November that prison reformed him. He said that deputies' allegations in the cruelty to animals case were false, and that people were unfairly sending him hate mail.
"I've got people sending me letters with no (return) addresses on it," he said, "talking about I'm a dog beater and I'm a woman beater, and I need to be sent to prison and ... stuff like that."
Case UpdatesA year after one of Pasco County's more notorious animal abuse cases, the 5-pound puppy that endured it has settled into health and happiness - complete with free run of a home in St. Pete Beach and a doggie door leading out toward a white picket fence.
Donna Hamilton wrote the Pasco Times this week. "When we brought her home, we couldn't fill her up! She gained three pounds in the first week! We would sneak her into Publix every week to weigh her on their scale, and we kept a record of her progress. She now tips the scales at just under 50 pounds."
Hamilton adopted the puppy last year after hearing news of its savage beating during a New Port Richey domestic dispute. The dog was 7 weeks old then. Her name was Roxy.
On Nov. 20, 2004, authorities said, Curtis Charles Guy got into an argument with his girlfriend. Guy, then 24, grabbed his 18-year-old girlfriend by the throat, a sheriff's report said, and pushed her to the ground. Then he picked up Roxy and slammed her to the floor of his mobile home. The girlfriend told a deputy that as she and Guy's mother begged him to stop, Guy took the puppy outside and slammed it twice more into the driveway, telling them to watch while he killed it. A deputy found the pit bullterrier mix on the driveway, quivering and trying to hold her head up, her eyes closed.
Roxy recovered from a concussion, a broken jaw and two skull fractures at Little Animal Hospital in New Port Richey. She so charmed the clinic's technicians that they made special trips in the middle of the night to check on her. The puppy soon was adopted by Hamilton and her husband, who live in St. Pete Beach. They renamed her Susie. "If there was a smarter or sharper dog, I would never know one," Nelson Hamilton said Thursday. "She's full of life."
In September 2005, Guy pleaded guilty to animal cruelty. He is serving a two-year prison sentence, to be followed by two years of probation. "That's good for him," Nelson Hamilton said. "That might straighten him out." | Source: St Petersburg Times - December 30, 2005
Update posted on Dec 30, 2005 - 1:30AM |
References |
