Man beats dog, gets long prison term and very long pet ban
A Des Plaines man pleaded guilty today to animal cruelty charges for beating a dog outside his house in June. James Robert Wesolaski, 51, was sentenced to 30 months prison and ordered not to own a pet or live in a residence with any animal for 20 years.
Wesolaski, of the 1100 block of South Wolf Road, entered a guilty plea on felony animal torture and cruelty charges for pinning his small brown dog to the ground in front of his home in early June and punching the dog four or five times as hard as he could, prosecutors said. After the beating ended, witnesses reported, Wesolaski picked up the limp dog by the scruff of his neck and took it inside, prosecutors said.
Police, called to the home by witnesses, found the dog with swollen, bleeding eyes and broken capillaries, which authorities said indicated the animal had been choked. They said that Wesolaski told police that he was having a bad day and beat the dog because it got outside…. Wesolaski was bleeding from apparent dog bites on his hand and face when officers arrived, authorities said.
Authorities also said Wesolaski’s June arrest violated his probation from an incident earlier this year in which he admitted to trying to wrest a Taser from a police officer.
Wesolaski did not speak during today’s hearing at the Skokie Courthouse other than to say understood the plea deal. He has been jailed since his arrest. Judge Lauren Edidin told Wesolaski that his 20-year ban on having a pet is “a very serious part of this agreement.” The judge also advised Wesolaski to get anger-management counseling and treatment for alcohol abuse.
The beaten dog, a Lhasa Apso named Teddy, has made a full recovery. Teddy and Wesolaski’s other two dogs have been adopted into new homes, Cook County prosecutors said.
I am a huge pet lover, and I even had a beloved Lhasa Apso in my childhood home (her name was Cleo, if anyone cares). Nevertheless, I cannot help but wonder if this stiff prison sentence goes a bit further than necessary, and I also wonder whether a two decade ban on living in a residence with any animal is really enforceable or constitutionally problematic.
For a little context here, recall that Michael Vick only got 23 months for his dog-fighting related federal convictions, all of which included far mor horrific acts of animal abuse than what (surely cute) Teddy endured here. Perhaps there was evidence in the record in this case that Teddy suffered greatly, though the reported fact that the little guy “has made a full recovery” leads me to wonder whether the beating was all that extreme.
Absent any other evidence of the defendant being an unusual or extreme threat to people, taking up a scarce and expensive prison cell for this dog-beating loser until 2015 seems like a relatively poor use of Illinois taxpayer resources. The idea of anger-management classes and treatment for alcohol abuse seem wise, but I think Illinois would get more band for its incapacitation buck if it made this kind of rehabilitative programming required and monitored, rather than placing the defendant in an (often criminogenic) incarceration setting.
And does this sentence now mean that Illinois probation officials need to be checking in on Wesolaski until 2035 to make sure he is not living in any residence with a pet turtle or hamster? If Wesolaski needs to be placed in an assisted living facility in his early 70s, will probation officers need to make sure nobody else in the facility has a pet parrokete?
I suspect there may be more to this story than this press report indicates, though I cannot help but wonder if prosecutors were uniquely aggressive based on Wesolaski’s prior trouble with police or if his defense attorney was uniquely unable or unwilling to develop any mitigating evidence for sentencing. (Indeed, as a joking aside, I am inclined to suggest that if Wesolaski’s dog was less cute and cuddlely that a Lhasa, he might have tried to assert that his doggie assault was in self defense after he tried to corral the wayward pooch inside.)
Lest I be misunderstood, I do not mean or want to suggest that Wesolaski merits sympathy or that extreme animal cruelty should not be a criminal justice matter. But I do mean and want to suggest that the sentencing response here to relatively minor crime, involving a significant prison term and behavior restriction, could do more harm than good (and will cost taxpayers a lot) because it does not appear either evidence-based or reasonably crafted to help ensure this defendant does not go on to do more harm in the future.