{"id":10458,"date":"2016-05-29T16:33:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T20:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=10458"},"modified":"2017-04-14T15:28:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T19:28:29","slug":"caroline-county-man-charged-with-animal-cruelty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2016\/05\/29\/caroline-county-man-charged-with-animal-cruelty\/","title":{"rendered":"Caroline County Man Charged with Animal Cruelty"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_10459\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/a3590c68-a02a-489f-abab-003f06d8f2c5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10459\" class=\"wp-image-10459 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/a3590c68-a02a-489f-abab-003f06d8f2c5-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"a3590c68-a02a-489f-abab-003f06d8f2c5\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/a3590c68-a02a-489f-abab-003f06d8f2c5-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/a3590c68-a02a-489f-abab-003f06d8f2c5-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/a3590c68-a02a-489f-abab-003f06d8f2c5.jpg 376w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10459\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mervyn Jay Downes III<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A Caroline County man has been arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated animal\u00a0cruelty in connection with the mutilation and death of two goats and the maiming of a third at a state\u00a0park, the <a href=\"http:\/\/dnr2.maryland.gov\/nrp\/Pages\/home.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Maryland Natural Resources Police <\/a>reported.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Mervyn Jay Downes III, 21, of Ridgely, turned himself in late Friday night after officers searched his\u00a0home and found evidence linking him to the two crimes earlier this spring. He is scheduled for a\u00a0preliminary hearing in Caroline District Court on July 5.<\/p>\n<p>On April 8, officers were called to the Adkins Arboretum in <a href=\"http:\/\/dnr2.maryland.gov\/publiclands\/Pages\/eastern\/tuckahoe.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Tuckahoe State Park<\/a> after two goats were\u00a0found dead, their throats slit. On May 2, officers returned to the arboretum after another goat had\u00a0been attacked, but survived the stabbing.\u00a0Evidence collected at the scene eventually led investigators to Downes, who lives on a road abutting\u00a0the park.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the animal cruelty charges, Downes also was charged with three counts of malicious\u00a0destruction of property, two counts of destroying an animal in a state park, two counts of having a\u00a0weapon in a state park, two counts each of trespassing and being in a state park after hours. Officers\u00a0also seized several weapons from his home.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2015\/12\/29\/natural-resources-police-nabs-seven-deer-poachers\/\" target=\"_blank\">Downes was charged last December<\/a> with multiple counts of illegal deer hunting and pleaded guilty in\u00a0Queen Anne\u2019s District Court to one charge. He was given probation before judgment and fined\u00a0$1,500, all of it suspended. He is on probation until Sept. 3.<\/p>\n<p>The maximum sentence for aggravated cruelty to animals is three years in prison and a fine of\u00a0$5,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Caroline County man has been arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated animal\u00a0cruelty in connection with the mutilation and death of two goats and the maiming of a third at a state\u00a0park, the Maryland Natural Resources Police reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-nrp-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10458"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10464,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458\/revisions\/10464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}