ALBANY — Appellate justices on Thursday unanimously upheld the 2018 felony conviction of a Schenectady man who walked right into a neighbor’s fenced yard, allowed his two pit bulls to maul a cat and fled with the mortally wounded pet within the mouth of considered one of his dogs.
Benjamin Restifo, 36, who apparently boasted about letting his dogs go after different animals, was convicted at trial of aggravated cruelty to animals. He appealed to the state’s second-highest court docket arguing that his conviction was not supported by legally ample proof.
But in a 4-0 determination, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department upheld his conviction, and revealed further incidents involving Restifo and his dogs.
“(Restifo) was well aware that his dogs were ‘very aggressive,’ as he put it in his testimony, and he acknowledged that he even kept the dogs away from his young son because it was ‘not worth the risk,’” Justice John Egan stated in authoring the ruling.
By the time the defendant’s dogs attacked the neighbor’s pet — a calico cat named Buttons — in July 2017- on Emmett Street, Restifo “knew that they would attack smaller animals, including pets, and the proof reflected that he was uninterested in addressing the problem,” Egan said.
On the day of the incident, a witness stated Restifo walked previous the neighbor’s home together with his leashed dogs, Aurora and Kaia, opened the gate and walked uninvited into their fenced yard towards the porch, the place Buttons was sitting. Restifo allowed the dogs to climb the steps of the porch, the place they mauled the cat. As an upstairs tenant started yelling, one of many householders and different neighbors requested Restifo to cease. Instead, he fled with the dogs because the cat was nonetheless within the mouth of one of many pit bulls. The crowd adopted Restifo again to his home the place the pit bull lastly launched Buttons, who died, in response to the ruling.
Following the trial, appearing Supreme Court Justice Kate Hogan sentenced Restifo to 6 months in jail and 5 years of probation for the felony conviction and a concurrent 9 months in jail for the misdemeanor conviction of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals. The latter cost was dismissed as a result of it was thought-about a lesser-included offense of the felony cost.
On Thursday, the Third Department ruling famous that in September 2016, an animal management officer had warned Restifo he ought to hold his pit bulls muzzled whereas walking them. Restifo ignored the warning and continued to walk the dogs on a six-foot leash.
“Other testimony reflected that defendant consciously allowed the pit bulls to attack other animals,” Egan wrote.
Restifo’s former co-workers testified that Restifo had boasted to them about his capacity to regulate aggressive dogs — and the way he would let his pit bulls go after different dogs and go off leash to attack “wild animals and old animals.” Prior to the 2017 incident, one house owner testified that Restifo “allowed his leashed dogs to run onto her porch and lunge at two feral cats without making any effort to stop them,” Egan said.
In 2016, Restifo’s dogs mauled a small canine when the canine ran towards them, Egan famous.
“The small dog’s owner and another eyewitness testified that defendant made no effort to stop that attack either, instead telling the small dog’s owner that it was ‘done’ and to let defendant’s dogs ‘finish it,’ ” Egan stated.
Restifo downplayed the earlier incidents, denied boasting about his dogs’ assaults or that he was warned by the animal management officer. The Third Department was unmoved.
“The jury had an opportunity to hear the competing accounts of what occurred … and it credited the proof that defendant had intentionally acted
to seriously injure or kill Buttons by the depraved means of dog attack,” Egan stated. “We accord deference to that assessment of credibility and, having done so, are also satisfied that the verdict is not against the weight of the evidence.”
Justices Michael Lynch, Andrew Ceresia and Lisa Fisher concurred.
Schenectady County Assistant District Attorney Peter Willis represented District Attorney Robert Carney’s workplace. Albany lawyer Adam W. Toraya represented Restifo.
