Jellybean, a Lhasa apso-shih tzu mix, was kicked
into the Intracoastal after having speaker wire
wrapped around its neck and a hind leg.
Photo provided
By Sallie James
A dog bound with speaker wire and then kicked into the Intracoastal Waterway has been returned to its original owner: the son of the woman who is accused of leaving the animal to drown.
Jellybean, as police named the dog, was returned to Richard Ostrovski on April 22, 11 days after his mother, Eva Klein, was accused of kicking the bound animal into the water off a boat ramp at Silver Palm Park.
Bystanders rescued the struggling dog, a Lhasa apso-shih tzu mix.
Klein, 60, is charged with felony cruelty to animals and was issued a “no contact” order to stay away from the dog. Bystanders told police the dog had speaker wire wrapped tightly around its neck and also tied to one of its back legs when they pulled it out of the water.
David Walesky, operations manager for Palm Beach Animal Care and Control, said the dog was returned to Ostrovski under a settlement agreement that bars Klein from ever being near the dog.
“The woman has a no-contact order. She is not allowed around the dog,” Walesky said. “The legal owner is the son, and there was no legal reason why we could justify not giving it back to him.”
Klein’s attorney, Craig Blinderman, said Ostrovski gave the dog to his mother a few years ago because he lived in an apartment and couldn’t keep the animal there. But Ostrovski now lives in a house and was able to take back the dog, Blinderman said.
Blinderman declined to discuss further details of the case, but said Klein does not admit to any wrongdoing.
According to a police report, Klein had the dog with her about 9:30 p.m. on April 11 at the Silver Palm Park boat ramp, at 600 E. Palmetto Park Road, when she wrapped black speaker wire several times around the dog’s neck, tied the wire to one of its back legs and then kicked it into the water.
Klein, who called the dog “Chappy,” told fisherman Greg Bunch, 53, that her dog liked to swim from one side of the Intracoastal Waterway to the other. Bunch questioned Klein about the perils of rough water and predators such as sharks, but walked off when she changed the subject to dancing, according to the report.
A short time later, Bunch told police he saw Klein leave the park without the dog. Then he heard a whimper.
“Bunch observed Klein’s dog in the water near the north corner of the dock that is connected to the drawbridge,” the police report states.
Bunch summoned two others, who used a boat to help pluck the struggling animal from the rough water. Bunch used his fishing knife to cut the speaker wire from around the dog’s neck and rear leg, according to the police report.
“It should be noted that Klein’s method of tightly wrapping a wire around the dog’s neck, tying it to one back leg, and then pushing it into the Intracoastal is a premeditated action that will surely cause the death of the animal if it had not been rescued,” an officer wrote in the report. “When the dog swam, the wire would tighten around the neck, eventually causing the dog to strangle himself due to the lack of oxygen . . . in a short period of time the dog would have drowned.
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