In an exclusive interview with The Daily Wire, a top official with Palm Beach County confirmed that animals who were intentionally abandoned by their owners during Hurricane Irma will be placed up for adoption following investigations and legal proceedings.
Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Captain David Wolesky told The Daily Wire on Wednesday that there are two-proceedings, civil and criminal, that must take place before a determination is made regarding the animal’s future.
Wolesky said those who are found guilty of animal abuse could face a third-degree felony which is punishable by up to a $10,000 fine and five years in prison.
“If our investigation shows that this was a criminal act, we have every intention of prosecuting those individuals,” Wolesky added.
Most of the animals were found in impoverished areas, specifically in trailer parks, when the sheriff made the rounds making sure everyone followed the mandatory evacuation orders.
“They were finding properties where the people had clearly left and there were animals either in the yard, tied to the trailer, in a cage in the back of a trailer, or running loose in the neighborhood,” Wolesky continued. “So, for those two days, the Friday and Saturday before the storm, we impounded 45 and 50 animals from out there.”
The plan is to put the animals that were rescued, and who are believed to be victims of a criminal act by their owners, up for adoption so they can end up in a “happier” situation.
“Each one of those is being looked at as an individual and unique situation and is being investigated by interviewing the neighbors, interviewing the owner when they come back home, finding out what happened, how the dog got in that situation, who exactly put that dog in that situation, why he was put in that situation, and decisions will be made based on the outcome of that investigation,” Wolesky noted.
Wolesky concluded by saying the animals whose owners are convicted of a crime will be put up for adoption in rescues within the county unless it is a unique situation which may require the animals to be placed in a state-run rescue program.
Full transcript of interview below:
Is the plan to put the animals who were intentionally abandoned into adoption facilities?
That’s the plan, is to put them up for adoption or to get them into rescues that can place them in appropriate situations as well.
Each one of those is being looked at as an individual and unique situation and is being investigated by interviewing the neighbors, interviewing the owner when they come back home, finding out what happened, how the dog got in that situation, who exactly put that dog in that situation, why he was put in that situation, and decisions will be made based on the outcome of that investigation.
If it is determined the animal was intentionally abandoned, the dogs are going to be placed up for adoption, what is the process for making that happen?
Yeah, exactly. In Florida, we have two different things going on, an animal is somebody’s property, so first and foremost, we have to solve that issue. If we remove it from their property, even during a storm, it’s still their property. So, we have to solve that, so in state law, there’s a process, a legal process where I can claim that that animal was found to be in distress and get the court to rule that I was justified in removing that animal and therefore get a judge to award custody to us. That would only be necessary if the owner does not surrender it to us. A lot of times during the investigative process we can get the owner to surrender it to us willingly and then we can move it to adoption much quicker. But if we have to go to the civil court room over a custody case that could take up to 30 days. Separate from that you have the criminal aspects, so those are two different things going on at the same time, one would end up in the county court the other would end up in the state court.
Are you planning on pursuing criminal charges against individuals whose pets were found and believed to be intentionally abandoned?
Exactly, yes. If our investigation shows that this was a criminal act, we have every intention of prosecuting those individuals.
What kind of punishment would an individual receive if they are convicted?
It could be a third-degree felony which can’t exceed more than a $10,000 fine and five years in jail. A lot of times during a prosecution the state attorney’s office will plea it down or follow some sentencing guidelines for what they recommend, but the third-degree felony could call for that.
Will an announcement be made once the investigations are completed indicating where the animals are being placed for adoption?
Not a specific one, we do work with a lot of rescue groups, some of them are breed specific, some of them are more situational specific meaning that they’ll take pregnant dogs or they’ll take puppies or they’ll take dogs with severe injuries so we have a number of rescue partners, and we also partner quite [a bit] with the local Humane Society. Some of them will just [go] to our own adoption floor depending on what space we have available.
Are all the adoption facilities located within Palm Beach County?
The rescues, most of them have a component that is located within Palm Beach County. A lot of the rescues are more state wide when they are limited to specific breeds. They may have volunteers that cover a region of Florida and they’re just a network of home-based people. But we ideally would like to replace them with more of our brick and mortar facilities is what we call them, which actually has adoption programs open to the public hours at a fixed location. But we have a number of tools and mechanisms we can use to get these animals out of here to happy outcomes.
How many total animals did your team end up rescuing that you believe were left behind intentionally and not just wandering around?
Both of them, even the ones that were wondering around in these trailer parks, it seems as though they were intentionally turned loose and abandoned to fend for themselves. Yeah, because some of them were just so friendly they came running right up to you, it just didn’t make any sense why someone would abandon them. So basically, what happened is, the county issued a mandatory evacuation for the Glades area, which Palm Beach County has a diverse set of economical backgrounds here so it’s not all palm trees and paradise. Out around the lake we have some impoverished communities out in the farming communities and these are the areas most affected when this mandatory evacuation hit. These are a lot of mobile home parks, so the sheriff was going around in there to make sure that everyone was getting out and in the process of doing so, they were finding properties where the people had clearly left and there were animals either in the yard, tied to the trailer, in a cage in the back of a trailer, or running loose in the neighborhood. So, for those two days, the Friday and Saturday before the storm, we impounded 45 and 50 animals from out there.