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“Clearly this is a hoarder scenario. [The] worst case of animal hoarding that I’ve seen in Martin County,” said Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek
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- Gail Giustino, 77, was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors, including animal cruelty, after “hoarding” at least 70 cats and dogs in her Florida home
- Authorities said the animals were living in squalid conditions, with some areas covered in a “foot of feces”
- Giustino had been cited up to 65 times in the past for allegedly confining animals in her house and will go through the court process, police said
A woman was detained after “hoarding” dozens of cats and dogs in her Florida home.
Gail Giustino, 77, was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors, including animal cruelty and confining an animal without sufficient food or water, Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek shared in a press conference on Monday, July 20.
Budensiek said that officers initially received a report of a female postal service worker who was “stealing or collecting cats along her route.” He said that officers responded and they learned that Giustino had been “collecting feral cats.”
When officers made contact with Giustino, he said that she was uncooperative and unwilling to tell officers how many animals she had in her home for over a week, which prompted them to execute a search of her house, according to Budensiek.
When officers entered her home, they discovered dozens of animals, including cats and dogs living in “squalor” and “horrific” conditions, and a hazmat team had to be deployed. He explained that in some places there was “a foot of animal feces” in the home.
Budensiek said that Giustino admitted to having “at least 70 cats” and an “unknown” number of dogs. He said that she may have also “taken up to 20 animals” to different facilities around Martin County.
“Clearly this is a hoarder scenario. [The] worst case of animal hoarding that I’ve seen in Martin County,” Budensiek told reporters.
He said that they did not believe that the 77-year-old woman was “an animal abuser,” but instead was trying to do “the right thing,” but in the “wrong way.”
“The goal of arresting her was to be able to seize the animals to save them from death,” he said. “We could have charged her with 160 counts, two counts per animal. We’re only charging with two counts.”
Budensiek also noted that this isn’t the first time that the woman has been cited by police. He said that she has been issued “up to 65 citations” in previous years for confining different types of animals in her house.
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He said at one point, code enforcement was involved and helped her mitigate some of the problems,” including installing air conditioning and removing trash that blocked entry into the house. However, Budensiek said, “in the last 10 years, she has slipped back in her old habits.”
He said that the hope is that Giustino can get the help she needs through the court process.
“What we want to happen is that she doesn’t get animals back, or she can only have one or two,” he said. “And then we want her to go through the mental health court process to get her some kind of an evaluation and see where she is.”
Read the original article on People
