An Allegany County man who admitted burning his dog to death in what police described as a “deviant” act of animal cruelty has avoided jail time in the case.
Jeremy Vankuren was sentenced last week by Allegany County Judge Terrence M. Parker to three years of probation, plus fees and surcharges, according to a court official.
Vankuren pleaded guilty to two counts of torturing, injuring and not feeding an animal, which are misdemeanors under the state’s Agriculture and Markets law.
He initially was charged with kidnapping and aggravated animal cruelty, both felonies, and menacing, torturing an animal and obstruction of governmental administration, all misdemeanors, in the incident that occurred June 19 at his residence on County Route 23 in Fillmore, a hamlet within the Town of Hume.
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State Police previously told The Buffalo News that Vankuren was hosting a party that day when, at some point, he became irritated by his dog’s barking.
When another party guest overheard Vankuren say that he was going to go out and take care of the dog, this guest, fearing what Vankuren would do, attempted to intervene, troopers said.
That is when, according to troopers, Vankuren tied the guest to a chair and forced him to watch as Vankuren threw his own dog, a red-nosed pit bull that was 13 or 14 years old, into a burning barrel in the backyard.
“It’s a very deviant kind of act. And it’s not something that people should look at lightly,” Trooper James O’Callaghan, the State Police spokesman in Western New York, said in an interview last year.
The friend remained tied up for hours, but was released or got free later that day, troopers said.
Vankuren was arrested nine days later after State Police, who received a tip from a member of the public, executed a search warrant at his residence.
It is not clear why prosecutors dropped the felony charges and allowed Vankuren to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts.
Allegany County District Attorney Ian M. Jones and Paul S. DiCola, the county’s first assistant public defender and Vankuren’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to messages Monday.