GA DAWG
Senior Member
Former deputy found guilty: Man gets probation for killing coon dog
By ASHLEY COX
The Times
CLEVELAND
www.gainesvilletimes.com
After nearly two hours of deliberation, a White County jury found a former Gwinnett County Sheriff's sergeant guilty of aggravated cruelty to animals in connection with the Christmas Eve 2004 shooting of a coon hound belonging to his mother's neighbor.
Michael Mustachio maliciously and knowingly shot and killed the dog, named Kate, on his mother's Wauka Ridge Road property during a family gathering, the jury ruled Tuesday evening. Mustachio was sentenced to five years probation, 60 days of community service in an animal shelter and could be fined up to $15,000.
He also must undergo anger management classes during his probationary period, Judge David Barrett ruled.
White County Assistant District Attorney Kerry Banister, representing the state, had requested Mustachio receive five years in prison with a period served in a probation detention center, 30 days of community service and a fine.
Dan Summer, Mustachio's defense attorney, insisted that his client didn't set out to do anything wrong the night the dog was shot.
"He made a bad choice," Summer said. "I would ask you have mercy on this man."
Summer asked that Barrett consider giving Mustachio a lighter sentence since it was his first offence, which Barrett denied.
On the night in question, Stanley Barnes, along with friends Don Maney and Brent Thomas, had been out hunting with two female treeing Walkers when they heard shots fired 10 to 20 minutes later.
Maney's dog, Lady, was barking at something in a tree nearby, but Barnes couldn't find Kate when he tried to use a tracking device attached to her collar.
The dog was later found dead in the back of Mustachio's truck under a bunch of trash bags. Her tracking collar, as well as its antenna, had been cut off.
During the trial, several members of Mustachio's family gave their accounts of what happened that Christmas Eve.
Helen King, Mustachio's aunt, said the family was exchanging gifts when they heard growling, snarling and yelping. They assumed it was wild animals.
"It was scary," she said, adding that the noise sounded like it was right on the front porch.
Mustachio's father, Ted, a retired Gwinnett County firefighter, said his son fired shots in order to scare the animals away.
"We weren't trying to kill anything," he said.
When the three hunters wouldn't leave the Mustachios' property, Ted Mustachio suggested to his son that they might have hit a dog.
After walking about 45 yards up the mountain from the house, Ted Mustachio said they saw a dog laying with its head on its paws.
"My emotion was, 'the poor animal,'" he said.
He picked the dog up and carried it to the house, where Mustachio cut off its collar and he cut off the antenna.
When Banister asked why he cut the collar, he replied, "We were afraid."
Officials with the White County Sheriff's Office were called to the Mustachios' property twice that night within a period of about 30 minutes.
Officer Jarrett Fry, who came to the property both times, said there was nothing to indicate that Mustachio knew a dog had been shot.
Both Ted and June Mustachio said they weren't aware an animal had been struck before Kate was found. They also didn't see any visible signs of trauma on the dog.
Barnes had an autopsy performed on Kate at the University of Georgia's college of veterinary medicine.
Elizabeth Howerth, head of the college's pathology department, said based on the report that the dog had been shot through the neck. The bullet broke several bones and caused the lungs to hemorrhage.
She said other than the gunshot wound, there was no other sign that the dog had been maimed or tortured in any way.
In her closing arguments, Banister said that Mustachio knowingly and maliciously killed the dog because he tried to cover it up, and that a dog doesn't have to be strung up to be maliciously killed.
"It went looking for a coon and this is what it got in return," she said.
In his closing statement, Summer told the jury that doing something maliciously means mean-spirited, done with a black heart.
"This is not maliciousness, folks," he said, adding that there was no indication anyone knew the dog had been hit.
Just before Mustachio's sentencing, Barrett said that when someone straps on a .40-caliber pistol, they carry with them a certain amount of responsibility.
At this point, Barrett told Mustachio, "Law enforcement's not a career you need to be in."
I tore into him and he told me I just did't understand how it was with hunting dogs and all kinds of excuses, I asked him did he not see my pen full of beagles, and when somebody calls me to come get my dogs I did. Well, next thing I know the cops show up at my house and ask me what happen, saying that I should't have shot the dog with the paintball gun, that he could have said that is dog was worth $1000 if he wanted to or whatever amount and I might have been liable. 
