Crime

A puppy spent weeks hospitalized after strangulation attack. Her owner is going to prison.

She suffered a series of painful cuts across her body. Burns, likely from cigarettes, dotted her skin. From being choked, her brain swelled, her eyes grew blood red and she could barely hold her head up from the pain.

Chanel, a black-and-white Pointer-mix puppy, spent nearly a month in a Miami animal hospital recovering from her injuries.

Her attacker, however, will spend two years behind bars.

Hericmay Perez-Hernandez, 39, pleaded guilty Monday to attacking his dog and his girlfriend in a domestic-violence case.

The charges included felony animal cruelty, battery and aggravated assault with a weapon.

Perez-Hernandez also pleaded guilty to tampering with a witness for attacking the woman the day before a court hearing.

“The puppy is also alive and happily adopted by another family,” Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Kyrsten Melander wrote in a final report on the case.

Perez-Hernandez, a mechanic with a drinking problem, had been arrested twice before for domestic violence with the same girlfriend. Neither resulted in convictions.

The third incident happened on May 10, 2019, at the man’s West Kendall home. According to police, Perez-Hernandez hit his girlfriend and then, in a rage, strangled the 17-pound puppy.

The dog bit Perez-Hernandez, which caused him to shatter a glass table top on top of the dog’s crate, spraying her with shards of glass. “According to the victim, he went inside of the house, grabbed a kitchen knife and said he was going to kill the puppy,” the final report said.

Perez-Hernandez threatened to kill the woman if she tried to intervene. He went outside to the backyard where the dog was. She “heard the puppy scream, and then suddenly stop,” the report said. “The defendant came inside and asked for a garbage bag because he thought he killed the puppy.”

The dog, however, did not suffer any deep stab wounds. A neighbor called 911. The animal spent weeks at the Knowles Animal Clinic. Her neurological damage was so bad that staffers had to hold her head up for her to even be able to eat.

Over the next few months, the abused girlfriend had wavered on whether to testify and cooperate with prosecutors.

As part of the plea deal, Perez-Hernandez will also have to serve an additional five years of probation, and will not be able to own any animals. He’ll also have to pay restitution to Miami-Dade’s Animal Services department, and undergo alcohol-abuse treatment.

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David Ovalle
Miami Herald
David Ovalle covers crime and courts in Miami. A native of San Diego, he graduated from the University of Southern California and joined the Herald in 2002 as a sports reporter.
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