KINGSTON – A Kerhonkson man was sentenced in Ulster County Court to a year in the county jail for shooting and killing his friend’s nine-year-old pit bull dog. County Court Judge Donald Williams also banned Matthew Miller, 31, from owning or harboring any animal and to pay restitution of $1,500 to the owner of the dog.
The pet was briefly entrusted in Miller’s care at the time when he killed it.
At the time of the incident, Miller told investigators from the Ulster County SPCA that he had shot a “stray dog” that had wandered onto his property. The dog was exhumed and found not to be stray, but was in fact, the dog in his care.
Following a three-day trial in which five witnesses testified, the jury delivered for two hours and returned the guilty verdict last Friday to a felony of aggravated cruelty to animals.
