A Chester Township man charged with shooting his neighbor’s dog in January has pleaded no contest to a felony animal cruelty charge.
Dennis Dudich, 68, of Bentbrook Drive, entered the plea in Geauga County Common Pleas
Court on Aug. 1 during a scheduled trial management conference. The plea is not an admission of guilt but has the legal effect of a guilty finding.
Judge Forrest Burt accepted his plea and found him guilty of prohibitions concerning companion animals, a fifth-degree felony.
Dudich faces six to 12 months in prison and a $2,500 fine when he is sentenced on Sept. 18.
As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to dismiss at sentencing a misdemeanor charge of discharge of a firearm on or near prohibited premises.
Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz said there was little dispute regarding the facts of the case. Instead, he explained Dudich’s attorney, Jay Schlachet, wanted to challenge alleged defects in the law’s language.
“He (Schlachet) is arguing there are defects in the new law,” Flaiz said. “There is a concept in criminal law that if there are con- flicts or ambiguity in a statute, then a defendant should benefit from the ambiguity.”
Flaiz said Schlachet argued that under the statute, a person could maim a companion animal — which also is causing serious physical harm to it — and one is a misdemeanor and one is a felony, even though it is the same act.
“His argument is his client should get the benefit of the misdemeanor,” Flaiz said, adding, “the law certainly could have been written better.”
Because there was no real factual dis- pute, and Schlachet wanted to preserve his legal arguments, Dudich agreed to plead no contest.
“If you plead no contest and a judge finds you guilty, you preserve your appellate rights,” Flaiz explained. “I think he wants to have the option of being able to appeal his conviction and bring up those issues. But certainly, if he does that, my office will defend the statute and seek to uphold the conviction.”
At sentencing, Flaiz said he intends to ask Burt to send Dudich — who has no prior criminal record — to jail.
Schlachet agreed Monday with Flaiz’s characterization of his legal argument and declined further comment.
According to court records, Dudich shot a neighbor’s 3-year-old English Bulldog, named Zoey, in an adjoining neighbor’s backyard on Jan. 21.
Zoey was euthanized the next day after it was determined one of the bullets had severed her spinal cord and she likely would never walk again.
Zoey’s owner, Marcus Yagour, who lives with his parents, Mark and Peggy, two houses to the east of Dudich’s home, said Dudich shot the 65-pound Zoey because he believed she was a white cat that had been leaving muddy paw prints on his deck.
Marcus said police told him Dudich shot Zoey with a .22-caliber rifle, equipped with a magnified scope, from at least 50 yards.
Dudich is the first Geauga County resi- dent to be charged under Goddard’s Law, also known as House Bill 60, which makes knowingly causing serious physical harm to a companion animal a felony.
The bill, which became law in September 2016, is named after Dick Goddard, a long- time WJW Channel 8 weatherman and animal activist.
