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Animal Cruelty

Melissa Buchanan mugshot from SCPD

A woman was charged with animal cruelty after police found a dog dead and several other animals that had not been cared for in her home.

Officers responded to an apartment on Beverly Road in South Huntington on Thursday night after a landlord reported hearing a dog excessively barking and “realizing she had not seen her tenant for a few days,” the Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement. The responders found two miniature Australian shepherd dogs, one of them dead, as well as two lizards and a cat — all of which had not been cared for, police said.

The tenant, 27-year-old Melissa Buchanan, returned while police were at the scene and “admitted to police she had not been home for several days.”

She was charged with six counts of animal cruelty for allegedly abandoning the animals.

Attorney information for Buchanan was not immediately available Friday morning.

Huntington Town’s animal control department took possession of the surviving dog and cat, while the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which worked with the police to bring charges against Buchanan, made arrangements for the lizards.

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Three horses reportedly found ‘emaciated and sick’

One of the horses is so sick, its ribs are visible through the skin. Photo from Suffolk SPCA

The Suffolk County SPCA has charged a Hauppauge woman with animal cruelty after her horses were found to be emaciated and sick.

Helen Malazzo. Photo from Suffolk SPCA
Helen Malazzo. Photo from Suffolk SPCA

SPCA Chief Roy Gross said that Helen Malazzo, 61, of Hauppauge, kept three horses at a boarding facility at 193 South St., Manorville, that had no running water on the property. After being examined by a veterinarian, one of the horses was found to be so sick and emaciated that he wasn’t sure it would survive without immediate veterinary care, Gross said. The other two horses were also allegedly neglected. 

Gross also said that the SPCA seized all three horses and they are now in foster care receiving the proper attention. Malazzo returns to First District Court in Central Islip on Oct. 5.

Gross asked the public to help cover the veterinary care for the three horses by making donations to the Suffolk County SPCA. All donations are tax deductible to the extend permitted by law.

File photo

Suffolk County Police arrested two men and charged them with aggravated animal cruelty after retrieving a pair of badly injured dogs from a Huntington yard in “squalid” condition last Thursday, police said.

The men, Errol James, 55, of Denmark Court in Huntington and Derrick Simon, 54, of Nostrand Avenue in Central Islip, were arrested and charged with torturing and injuring animals. Police said the two dogs were kept at James’ home in “squalid and unsanitary conditions with no food or water,” and in a kennel “contaminated with feces and debris.”

When Huntington Town Animal Shelter Director Jerry Mosca got to the scene, he said he observed the two dogs, a female German shepherd and a male black and white pit bull, “killing each other in the backyard.” Shelter officials took the dogs to an animal hospital in Northport.

“I don’t know how you can come home, no matter who you are as a human being, to see the shape these dogs are in and actually live with yourself,” Mosca said. “I just don’t. I don’t get it.”

The pit bull’s ear was torn off, and an eye was punctured, and it had lacerations all over its face and body, Mosca said. The German shepherd had puncture wounds all over its legs and torso, severe ear infections and was “bleeding profusely,” he said.

“Just both of them were in very poor shape, dirty, feces on them.” Mosca said.

As of Wednesday, the dogs were back in the shelter and were doing much better and are showing signs of being friendly with humans, he said.

“They’re healing up great. They’re really showing signs of being healthy.”

The two men were arraigned on Friday. Larry Flowers, a Huntington attorney representing James, had no comment. Attorney information for Simon was not available.