A man who pleaded guilty to throwing a puppy out of a car and onto a busy highway in a Chicago suburb could have received a fine of $2,500 and up to a year in jail. But a DuPage County judge fined Sergiu Muresan, 26, about as little as possible: $100. In addition, Muresan, who offered no explanation for his actions, is not allowed to have a pet for a year, and is under court supervision, according to the Chicago Tribune.
That’s not even a slap on the wrist. It’s almost like a pat on the back…
By comparison, I also recently received a fine involving a dog. I committed the horrendous, heinous, blood-curdling crime of walking my big galoot of a yellow Lab, Jake, off leash for a few minutes on the quiet, foggy, empty San Francisco beach two blocks from my house. (The beach is off leash some times of the year, and used to be off leash every day.) My fine? $100, just like Muresan.
So throw a dog into a busy highway, and you pay $100. Let your well-behaved senior citizen dog off leash on an empty beach for a few minutes, and you also pay $100. Something doesn’t jibe.
Fortunately, the dog was unharmed, and was quickly reunited with his owner, Guillermo Roman, who lives on Muresan’s street. Roman said his dog, Bentley, had escaped from the fenced yard where Roman had put him for play time.
Dogsters, do you think the judge’s sentence was fair? What kind of message does it send about committing this kind of crime against pets?
