Alleged Dog Killing Lawyer Faces Four Years in Prison

Summary: Attorney Anthony Pastor alleged killed two of his ex-lovers’ dogs after the animals crapped on his floor.

A Manhattan attorney allegedly murdered his ex-girlfriend’s dog, and he now faces four years in prison for the animal slaughter, the New York Post reported.

According to the defendant’s lawyer, tech attorney Anthony Pastor and his then-girlfriend were having sex underneath a tree in Riverside Park. Pastor and his ex, Taly Russell, had tied her dog Snoopy to a fence yards away, and Pastor claimed that as they were getting busy, the dog mysteriously injured itself or was attacked by strangers.

During the trial, Pastor’s attorney, Gerald Lefcourt, tried to blame “dog walkers, building people, passerbys” and even an elevator for the dog’s August 2016 death. The 4-year-old dead poodle’s body had been discovered to have nine broken ribs, a damaged kidney, a beat up liver, and internal bleeding, The New York Post said.

While the defense was adamant that a mysterious stranger killed Snoopy, the prosecutors didn’t buy any of those dog tales. Instead, they allege that Pastor killed the poodle after it took a poop on his carpet.

“This small, fluffy dog was beaten to death,” Assistant District Attorney Tanisha Palvia said during trial. “Think about the kind of person who would cause this kind of injury to a defenseless animal.”

Palvia said that the dog was not beaten in the park, but instead at the defendant’s apartment, where it had been found dead. She said that the severity of the injuries was more likely done by Pastor and not his girlfriend, who had loved the pet for years.

“Do you really believe that that slender woman [Russell] beat to death the same dog her children loved so much, until her organs were pulverized, breaking nine of her ribs, on the day before her daughter’s birthday?” Palvia said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Although Pastor, 46, did not testify, Pastor’s two exes took the stand as witnesses for the prosecution. Russell described the horror of finding her dead dog, and his other ex, Monique Olivares, said that her dog Molly had died in a similar circumstance in 2013. Both pets were discovered dead in the defendant’s brownstone located on the Upper West Side.

“I found her in front of the sofa, not moving, lifeless and there were feces behind her,” Olivares said. “I said, ‘Oh my God, Molly is dead!'”

Russell, 45, said that when she found the dog she had no idea that her boyfriend, an attorney and father, could be the culprit.

“The whole thing didn’t make any sense,” Russell said during her testimony. “Who murders a dog? It’s just not something people I’ve known do.”

Russell and Pastor had met through the website, Match.com, two months after her divorce. During the trial, she said that she had noticed that Snoopy cowered in Pastor’s presence, but despite this claim, the defense pointed out that she had also left her dog alone with Pastor on numerous occasions so that she could jetset the world. The defense also said that after Snoopy’s death, she invited Pastor and his son to vacation at her house in the Hamptons.

The jury is currently deliberating on their decision.