The former supervisor of a local SPCA in Texas was found guilty yesterday of allowing her 5-month-old German shepherd puppy to starve to death inside her Plano apartment.
Alicia Marie Martin, while qualifying for a two-year state prison sentence, received three years probation, a $500 fine and four days in the Collin County jail — the four days before Thanksgiving, the Dallas Morning News reported.
“I’m sending you there so that hopefully, when Thanksgiving rolls around each year, you will thank God that you are not incarcerated in jail somewhere,” State District Judge Mark J. Rusch said. “I’m not interested in crushing you … I am interested in your rehabilitation. I am interested in you knowing this was unacceptable behavior.”
As part of her sentence, she is forbidden to own a pet.
Martin, the former supervisor at the McKinney Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was fired after her arrest in March.
According to prosecutors, Martin, 24 and a single mother, let the puppy starve to death inside her waterlogged apartment. She adopted the dog as a Christmas gift for her daughter, now 3, but the puppy became ill. She said couldn’t afford to take the dog to a veterinarian and was too embarrassed to take him to the local SPCA where she worked for help.
When the electricity was cut off she temporarily moved to a hotel and left the dog at the apartment, returning once a day to let him out of his crate and feed him. A veterinarian who testified, however, said the emaciated animal had no signs of food or fat in his system and was covered with open bedsores.
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