NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A man caged five Belgian Malinois puppies in “cruel and inhumane” conditions behind a gas station in North Miami Beach, according to police, who said he also had four adult dogs that appeared to be starving.
Miami-Dade police arrested David Denneen on 10 animal cruelty charges Thursday.
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Police said the investigation into Denneen began six days prior after Miami-Dade Animal Services told detectives that they were trying to find the 58-year-old to serve him with a civil court order for having 14 Malinois dogs — eight adults and six puppies.
According to an arrest report, police found Denneen, who is homeless, just before 8 a.m. Thursday behind the Shell gas station at 2799 NE 163rd St., near the Eastern Shores neighborhood of North Miami Beach.
There, detectives found 10 dogs — four adults and six puppies.
Five of the puppies were being kept in a roughly 10-inch high cage in a “cruel and inhumane manner,” police said.
The puppies “were all laying next to and on top of each other” and “not able to stand or move about” due to the tight confines, the arrest report states.
The four adult dogs, “due to neglect and being deprived of necessary sustenance or shelter, appeared to be (malnourished), underweight, ribs showing and not clean to the touch or smell,” a detective wrote.
The heat index by 10 a.m. that day was already 100 degrees, according to police.
Authorities took Denneen into custody. Most of what he told police was redacted from the arrest report, but a short unredacted portion possibly references a statement about providing “the dogs to the U.S. military.”
Denneen’s animal cruelty charges comprise five felonies and five misdemeanors.
If he’s found guilty, it would mark a return to prison for the convicted felon. Florida Department of Corrections records state that he served a little more than three years of a five-year prison sentence stemming from an aggravated stalking conviction out of Palm Beach County.
As of Friday, he was being held in Miami-Dade County’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a bond of a little more than $2,500.