Green upset his dog was put to sleep
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“They reneged on their deal,” said Jeff Green, former owner of Gus, a pitbull which was recently put down at the local animal shelter. “The only reason I pled guilty was I didn’t want my dog put to sleep.”
Green forfeited the dog, which he had raised from a pup, as part of a plea agreement last month which netted him a probationary sentence. Green had faced charges of allowing an animal to roam at large and vandalism.
The charges came after Gus allegedly bit a girl at the Jungle Jym, something Green denies ever happened. The charges also included destruction of a hotel room where Green was staying with his dog, something Green agrees did happen.
The incidents, including a third incident which involved a police officer who said Gus attempted to attack him, led prosecutors to demand the dog be forfeited as part of any plea deal.
While Green said he did in fact enter into the agreement, he pointed out prosecutors said they intended to send the dog to Hamilton County to see if it could be adopted. Green said his dog never made it out of the local animal shelter as it was put down without ever being given a chance to be adopted. Green and his family were barred from adopting the dog, and he can’t even own a dog while he is on probation.
“They blatantly killed him here even though the deal was they would send him to Chattanooga,” Green said. “He wasn’t a vicious dog like they said.”
While Green says he intends to file a lawsuit and ask the court to let him out of his deal, District Attorney General Dale Potter said no assurances were made the dog would be sent to Chattanooga.
“The day he entered the plea agreement, he forfeited any rights he had to the dog,” Potter said. “The agreement was that we’d see about having the dog sent to Hamilton County, but then the local humane society got involved and he was put down. We didn’t renege.”
Potter said Green is well within his rights to ask for the deal to be set aside if he feels he was shorted. However, Potter said if the deal is put aside, prosecutors will likely prosecute him again.
“Just because he gets out of the plea agreement doesn’t mean we won’t go back and pursue the charge and try to put him in jail,” Potter said. “We had several other complaints on the dog besides the three that were on the warrants.”
Green said the entire incident has soured him on the legal system, noting he was very close to the dog. Green noted Gus was the sole survivor from a litter and that he had nursed the puppy when its mother died while giving birth. He added he and the dog had been inseparable ever since.
“It was like they killed one of my kids,” Green said. “They killed my best friend. This has almost made me insane. I cry every day when I think about it. Gus wouldn’t hurt anybody. Sure, he chewed some stuff up at the hotel room, and I agreed to pay that, but he didn’t bite that girl.
“If I had know they were just going to kill him, without even giving me a chance to appear in court to fight it, there’s no way I would have ever took the plea deal.”
Green is in the process of filing the necessary paperwork to have his plea agreement re-considered.