“We are all here today because we love our pets,” said Legislator Stephanie Bontempi. “We care for them and we need to further protect them.”
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine signed the Legislator’s reinvigorated Animal Abuse Registry bill into continued action on Wednesday, May 7th. He was surrounded by fellow local leaders as he did so.
Bontempi began talks in June 2024 with Suffolk County’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) Chief Roy Gross to revisit and reform the Animal Abuse Registry that Romaine first greenlit as a legislator in October 2010.
The online registry—which requires a name, address and photo from 18-and-older criminals convicted of animal abuse, and prohibits them from possessing animals—has been down since the Suffolk County Cyberattack in the fall of 2021.
This restoration will also mandate a 10-year presence for all offenders, whose crimes will now be ruled Class A misdemeanors.
“I just don’t understand animal cruelty,” said Romaine. “Societies that don’t protect their animals are not the type of society I want to belong to.”
Adds Romaine: “We have to have our responses ready. Between the BEAST Unit, between the SCPA, and between the police, we have gotten those answers.”
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina confirmed they have doubled the size of the BEAST unit while thanking all his partners—and ”most importantly, Hamilton,” the handy BEAST police dog also in attendance on Wednesday.
“When a bank robber gets out of prison, if he does not or she does not get themselves together when they go away, they’re going to come back to the community and they’re going to rob a bank,” Catalina said. He acknowledged that the same slippery slope can be applied to drug dealers, animal abusers and so forth.
Says Catalina: criminals will re-offend unless ample enhancements are supplied to both the tightening of law language and the alignment of street defense.
DA Tierney's BEAST unit head appointee seconded this notion.
“Three years before BEAST [started in 2022], there were 55 animal cruelty prosecutions in Suffolk County. In the three years after Beast, there have been 187,” Jed Painter, general counsel to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, revealed.
“That kind of growth will always show cracks in the foundation,' Painter added. "Emergency training procurements, that’s funding, that’s closing loopholes... I’m very thankful to every partner here. They’re doing great work. They’re doing meaningful work—that’s what we need.”
Final speaker, SPCA Chief Roy Gross, announced an arrest had been made the previous night in the Bohemia hoarding incident that took the lives of 28 cats; nearly 70 more were found on the premises in terrible shape. “Upon conviction, another name will be added to the animal abuse registry,” Gross promised.
“The Suffolk County SPCA would like to extend our sincere thanks to legislator Stephanie Bontempi,” he added, “and those sponsoring this vital resolution to further protect animals from individuals who commit animal abuse crimes.”
“We would especially like to thank Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, a staunch supporter of animal safety.”