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NORRISTOWN — An Upper Merion man faces a period of probation and is prohibited from possessing animals after he admitted to charges he beat and neglected his dog, incidents that were recorded by a pet video camera in his residence.
Delvontae Weaver, 25, of the 1000 block of Penn Circle, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to two years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of cruelty to animals and neglect of animals in connection with incidents that occurred in August 2022.
Judge Virgil B. Walker, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, said Weaver is prohibited from possessing animals while under court supervision.
The investigation began in September 2022, when a woman who was a dog sitter for Weaver’s German shepherd dog “Athena” contacted authorities and turned over several videos that depicted the dog being kicked and punched by Weaver, according to the criminal complaint filed by Upper Merion Detective Danny Bocanumenth and Gregory Jordan, a Pennsylvania SPCA humane society police officer.
The dog sitter explained that she had access to the dog’s pet video camera to monitor the dog and when she checked the pet camera she witnessed Weaver beating the dog on multiple occasions inside his residence at the Lafayette Apartments at Valley Forge, according to the arrest affidavit. The dog sitter said while the pet camera was turned toward a television, the reflection of the beating was visible on the television screen.
The dog sitter provided authorities with three video clips recorded in the early morning hours of Aug. 31, according to court papers.
Authorities said they reviewed the video clips “and observed a male in the video in the dog’s pen area to violently punch downward twice out of view of the camera resulting in a dog yelping and then a German shepherd type dog is lifted up by the male that violently punches the dog in the face with a closed fist,” according to court documents.
The dog sitter reported that Athena had trouble walking and appeared swollen around her side and hip areas after the incident.
Police subsequently obtained a warrant to search Weaver’s apartment and he denied striking the animal and did not want to surrender ownership of the dog.
But authorities took possession of the dog and had the dog examined by a veterinarian who determined that radiographs revealed there were two fractures to the animal’s left rib. The veterinarian said the “rib fractures would be a very painful injury,” according to the arrest affidavit.
The veterinarian viewed one of the video clips retrieved by investigators that captured Athena being struck three times including being punched in the head, and indicated “that these actions placed the dog at imminent risk of serious bodily injury,” court papers indicate.
With the charges, authorities alleged Weaver intentionally, knowingly or recklessly abused the dog and placed the animal at risk of serious injury and also failed to provide necessary veterinary care to the dog as it pertained to addressing the rib fractures and related pain.
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