{"id":2482,"date":"2018-11-05T15:38:53","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T20:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=2482"},"modified":"2018-11-05T18:30:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T23:30:02","slug":"ocean-county-man-gets-90-day-jail-term-for-killing-navy-vets-therapy-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2018\/11\/ocean-county-man-gets-90-day-jail-term-for-killing-navy-vets-therapy-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"Ocean County Man Gets 90 Day Jail Term For Killing Navy Vet&#8217;s Therapy Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2483\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2483\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2483\" src=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/russo.jpg\" alt=\"Joseph Russo (Photo: Ocean County Jail)\" width=\"480\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/russo.jpg 480w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/russo-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/russo-336x420.jpg 336w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2483\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joseph Russo (Photo: Ocean County Jail)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A 25-year-old Ocean County man will spend the next three months in jail for killing his former friend\u2019s therapy dog, the county prosecutor\u2019s office announced Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Russo, of Manahawkin, was sentenced to a 90 day jail term on Friday for the killing of \u201cDiesel,\u201d a three year old Pomeranian who was in training to be a certified service\/therapy dog for his owner, Abigail Russel, who is a United States Navy veteran.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2484\" style=\"width: 197px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2484\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2484\" src=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-05-at-3.37.42-PM.png\" alt=\"Diesel, a therapy dog killed by a Manahawkin man. (Photo: OCPO)\" width=\"187\" height=\"318\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-05-at-3.37.42-PM.png 187w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-05-at-3.37.42-PM-176x300.png 176w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 187px) 100vw, 187px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diesel, a therapy dog killed by a Manahawkin man. (Photo: OCPO)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Russo pleaded guilty in June to an indictment charging him with animal cruelty. The incident occurred May 30, 2016. At the time, prosecutors said Diesel\u2019s owner alleged that the small dog was left in a room she had rented at the home of Russo five days earlier. When the owner returned a few hours later, Russo told her that Diesel had a seizure and died. Over the next few days, not believing Russo\u2019s story, Diesel\u2019s owner contacted the Stafford Township Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>Russo reportedly killed the dog by flexing its head and spinal cord. He admitted guilt to a statute that forbids one to \u201cknowingly, or reckless torment, torture, maim, unnecessarily or cruelly beat, cruelly abuse or needlessly mutilate a companion dog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As additional conditions of the sentence, Russo will be required to complete 30 hours of community service, complete anger management and be prohibited from owning or working with animals during the period of his probation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2018\/11\/ocean-county-man-gets-90-day-jail-term-for-killing-navy-vets-therapy-dog\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 25-year-old Ocean County man will spend the next three months in jail for killing his former friend\u2019s therapy dog, the county prosecutor\u2019s office announced Monday. Joseph Russo, of Manahawkin, was sentenced to a 90 day jail term on Friday for the killing of \u201cDiesel,\u201d a three year old Pomeranian who was in training to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[725,724],"class_list":["post-2482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-police-fire-courts","tag-animal-cruelty","tag-joseph-russo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/russo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}