A man who filmed himself performing s£x acts on a dog has launched a legal bid to stop his name being added to the s£x offenders register.
The 36-year-old, formerly from Williston, Vermont, US was convicted of animal cruelty last year after an investigation by local police and wildlife authorities revealed he had recorded himself abusing a 10-year-old pit bull terrier.
Investigators were alerted after receiving “information about b£stiality websites showing (the man) having s£x with a dog believed to be a large pit bull.”
Court documents noted that distinctive tattoos on the man matched those seen in the footage, which showed “evidence of open mouth kissing the dog, while also committing a s£x act,” according to local reports.
A search of his home by police and a licenced vet led to the seizure of multiple s£x toys, as well as the pit bull, a cat and a rat.
Authorities noted at the time that the dog was in poor health and faced the prospect of being put down. He ultimately admitted two misdemeanour counts of animal cruelty in Vermont.
However, after New York’s Board of Examiners of S£x Offenders determined in April that he must register under the state’s S£x Offender Registration Act, his defence attorney filed a challenge in the New York state Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
His lawyer, Joshua Friedman, argues that state officials relied on an incorrect statute equivalent to his Vermont conviction.
The board cited a New York law that covers when someone “engages in an@l s£xual contact with another person without such person’s consent.”
In court filings, Friedman wrote: “Conversely, the Vermont crime for which petitioner was convicted…can only be committed based upon s£xual conduct with an ‘animal.'”
He added: “Thus, it is factually and legally impossible to commit the crime the board cited based on the conduct underlying petitioner’s conviction, as the crime of conviction does not fall within the scope” of the section cited by officials.
While New York law contains a separate clause banning “s£xual conduct with an animal or d£ad human body,” the defence maintains the board cannot simply alter its reasoning after the fact.
Friedman said that “the Court of Appeals and other New York courts have consistently held, judicial review of an administrative determination is strictly limited to the grounds actually invoked by the agency.”
Furthermore, the legal challenge argues that state legislation defines “s£xual conduct” as applying “exclusively to interactions between human beings.”
“An animal is unambiguously not a person,” Friedman said in the petition. “Applying the plain text of Penal Law…it is legally impossible to engage in ‘s£xual conduct’ – an act the Legislature restricted solely to ‘persons’ – with a non-human animal.”
The lawsuit, brought against the state Division of Criminal Justice Services and the Board of Examiners of S£x Offenders, seeks a court order to annul the registration requirement.