A careless Bronx, New York woman was convicted of animal cruelty for leaving her dog to starve to death.
Cherika Alvarez, 30, abandoned her brown 1-year-old Pit Bull Alizé when she was evicted from her Bronx, New York basement apartment in mid-November 2009.
The malnourished dog ate nothing but razor blades, splintered plastic, wood chips, garbage and ketchup packets for six weeks before he died.
Officials from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found the dog lifeless amid piles of garbage and bloody stools in Jan. 2010. The pup’s body had no body fat, and was so emaciated that his remains had to be scraped off the floorboards.
The single mom – who claimed she left some food and water for the dog in the bathtub – testified she had arranged for a neighbor she barely knew to pick up Alizé. But the unidentified stranger never showed.
“I didn’t know him from a hole in the wall,” testified Alvarez. “I didn’t get any information from him. I should have been more smart. Me being irresponsible, I didn’t check up on the dog.”
During a bench trial, Alvarez’s lawyer, Scott Levy, argued she had no idea the dog was left behind.
“She treated that dog like family,” Levy said. “If Ms. Alvarez had known the dog was in the apartment suffering, she would have done something.”
Prosecutors suggested Alvarez had fictionalized her story about making arrangements with a neighbor.
“She left Alizé in that apartment like garbage and she walked away,” said Bronx Assistant District Attorney Megan Mellem.
Judge Robert Sackett decided Alvarez’s behavior amounted to cruelty. She faces up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine at her Sept. 28 sentencing.
She deserves a tuffer sentence. 30 years old and “didn’t know”! Poor pets like these will continue to suffer if we don’t have & enforce stricketr laws. Obama, you want to pardon her like you did Michael Vick?
So glad that justice can be done. This woman spent enough on her clothes it seems and not on rent or dog food!
She treated that dog like FAMILY ????? I sure as hell wouldnt want to be FAMILY with her !!!!! Just disgusts me….
What a real piece of work, I wish we could do to these people what they do to their animals. She looks like a real winner to me anyway, if I was her dog I wouldn’t claim her. How can people do things like this and live with themselves? Hopefully there’s a very Special place in hell for her and her kind!
rotten bitch i would love to get my hands on her i hope she rots in jail maybe with a little luck they will put her beside an animal lover and she will get what she deserves i sure hope so
An eye for an eye.
Ugly bitch with an equally ugly soul.
Ugly bitch with an equally ugly soul.
UP TO… one year…. UP to $ 1000.00 fine????? Come on Judge, sock it to her. She needs to learn from this. She needs to be given the MAX in sentence and fine. Please don’t let her walk away with a smirk???
she should be left alone without food or water. she makes me sick.
She needs to pay a bigger price for this. Her actions are appalling and sub-human. My heart breaks for this animal. No living creature (human or animal) deserves this treatment. You are not “irresponsible” Ms. Alvarez…you are a MONSTER. You deserve the same treatment.
She needs to pay a bigger price for this. Her actions are appalling and sub-human. My heart breaks for this animal. No living creature (human or animal) deserves this treatment. You are not “irresponsible” Ms. Alvarez…you are a MONSTER. You deserve the same treatment.
Shove razors up her ass !! Poor puppy its short life had to be like that……
ONE YEAR??? Disgusting!!
ONE YEAR??? Michael Vicks was kinder..@ least his tortured creatures were fed!
One year and $1000 is not near enough for what she did. That’s the problem, our society doesn’t have harsh penalties for any type of animal cruelty…..they let people treat them like this and get away with it. I am sick of it. Sick of the images and thinking of this poor soul and other dying they way they did, in pain, unloved.
What an ugly piece of crap this woman is. Forget jail time, just let the people who read this site have at her!
So very sad and utterly disgusting.I do not know how you punish a single mother who presumably is on a low income and if you imprison her,her child will suffer.An enforcable life ban on keeping any pet plus a deduction from her income and public humiliation….cannot think what else you could do without lowering yourself to her level and being cruel
Treated the dog like family? Would you leave a child with someone whom you didn’t know “from a hole in the wall?” Get real. The responsibility for follow-through was hers and she knew it!
I hope that she doesn’t have small children to equally torture. Karma is a Bxtch!!
She should get the same treatment that the dog suffered. If the dogwas family as she said, the dog would have went with her.
how could someone be so cruel. Shame on her hope some day she gets the same treatment.
She should be forced to eat razor blades. That poor poor dog.
One flipping year and that’s all? That’s DISGUSTING! Animals have feelings too, why does cruelty to humans, kids & the elderly get you more, but yet animals it doesn’t? UGH That bitch needs done to her what she did to that sweet pup
She was obviously more concerned with dying her hair and trying to look sexy than protecting her pet!! I hope that Child Services have checked in on her because I have a feeling that her mothering skills are probably not up to par either!! It is inconceivable to me that she will possibly get one year jail time, this is far too lenient as is the fine!! (I have a nice thought, “Why not lock her up with some razer blades and bits of wood to eat?”) Besides with a mother like that her child would probably be better off with someone else!!
U bitch! Hope you never forget what you did. You are disgusting.
Irresponsible? No, ignorant and callous, you bitch!
You deserve jail…you irresponsible B****.
Such people can’t be considered as humans, they are just beasts.
Kill her….She’s such a beast.