10EX-COP RIPS AUTHORITIES AFTER HER EX-HUBBY KILLS POOCH
Still seeking justice in case from 2018
A former NYPD officer claims her estranged husband killed the family dog within earshot of their children and the local authorities didn’t prosecute the alleged animal abuse.
More than two years after Voncile Alvarado found her year-old pit bull, Bandit, lifeless in his cage, no one — from the New Windsor police to the ASPCA to the Orange County district attorney — has filed charges in the dog’s death and now, the statute of limitations has expired.
Alvarado said she was upstairs with her children on Oct. 21, 2018, when she heard her estranged husband, Detective Edwin Alvarado, beating the puppy in their suburban home.
Voncile, 37, distinctly remembers hearing Bandit growl at her husband, then him hitting the dog.
“I was screaming at him, telling him to stop beating Bandit,” she remembered.
Though she didn’t see what happened, as she tried to calm her kids, she heard the pooch yelp. Then there was silence.
“I killed the dog! You’re next!” her husband screamed from downstairs, according to a police complaint she filed with the New Windsor police a month later.
“I was so scared I locked myself in the room in case he was going to knock down the door,” she recalled.
Bandit was buried in the feuding couple’s backyard. Now Voncile wants a necropsy done to determine how the dog died.
The puppy’s demise is front and center in the Alvarados’ contentious divorce case, where each accuses the other of being abusive.
In Family Court transcripts shared with the Daily News, 38-year-old Edwin admitted Bandit died in a struggle with him.
“He starts lunging for me,” Alvarado said, according to court papers. “[He] ended up latching onto my hand. And then at that point as a natural reaction I just threw him to the side a little bit with my hand in his mouth, trying to get my hand out of his mouth. At that point, yes, he did expire. I did it, there was nothing malicious or anything toward the dog,” he said. “[I was] just defending myself.”
Orange County Family Court Judge Lori Currier-Woods questioned the Bronx narcotics detective’s version of events. She didn’t believe the 75-pound animal would have died from being thrown once.
“It would take more than that to kill the dog,” Currier-Woods said, according to court documents.
“I’m concerned in this case, Sir,” she told the detective. “Killing a dog is a high-risk red flag for domestic violence.”
In December 2018, about a month after she reported Bandit’s death to local cops, there had been no movement in the case.
Based on the judge’s decision, the New Windsor Police Department stopped looking into it, as they believed the case was handed over to the animal cruelty squad of the Orange County sheriff’s office, but no request was ever made.
“The Orange County sheriff’s office has not had any involvement with the referenced case,” an agency spokeswoman said.
Over the next two years, Alvarado and her former lawyer, Hugh Ehrenzweig, repeatedly mentioned the stalled investigation into Bandit’s death, Ehrenzweig told The News.
“The judge dropped the ball,” said Ehrenzweig, who is now retired. “She forgot about it and when we brought it up, she started screaming at us. She wouldn’t listen to anything I said. She didn’t give Voncile a chance and let this guy get away with anything he wanted,” he recalled.
A spokesman for the state court
system said Judge Currier-Woods couldn’t demand an animal cruelty investigation if she wanted to.
“While she was the presiding judge on the Family Court case, that court has neither the ability nor authority to take an animal cruelty case into Family Court or transfer it,” the spokesman said. “Additionally, she did not tell anyone else to investigate the matter or not to do so.”
Voncile wonders if her husband’s rank had something to do with the authorities’ lackadaisical response.
“Sometimes cops show a shield, and others turn a blind eye to what happened,” she said. “I hope that didn’t happen here.”
A badge didn’t help Voncile when her husband had her arrested for shoving her daughter, even though she claims the child wasn’t harmed.
Now $30,000 in debt as she fought the divorce, child custody and criminal cases, Voncile pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment of a child.
The plea came with a cost: She lost custody of her three children and now only sees them every other weekend. It also ended her NYPD career, as she was forced to leave nine years shy of her retirement.
Through all that, Bandit’s death still weighed on Voncile’s mind. Late last year, she reached out to the ASPCA.
In January 2021, the New Windsor police had assigned two detectives to the case, but the probe ended before it started.
“We did have a misdemeanor case that we could investigate, but the DA said because of the statute of limitations we couldn’t go forward,” a New Windsor police official said.
A spokesman for the Orange County district qttorney’s office said he couldn’t comment on the investigation because no charges were filed.
Voncile also filed a complaint against her husband with the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau fearing that if her ex could kill a dog, he could be a danger to the public.
“He does have a problem,” she said. “He needs help.”
An NYPD spokesman confirmed that the department was notified about the animal cruelty case, but referred any questions back to the New Windsor Police Department.
Edwin Alvarado’s attorney said the department never disciplined Alvarado in regard to Bandit’s death.
He was, however, disciplined for failing to notify the department about getting an order of protection for his children against his estranged wife.
“Detective Alvarado adamantly denies these false and baseless allegations,” attorney Marissa Gillespie said. “These claims are from a person, who as a result of her conduct towards her children, was convicted in criminal court, lost custody of them and was fired from the NYPD.
“This most recent claim is another desperate attempt to shift the focus away from her egregious behavior,” Gillespie said.
But Voncile said this isn’t about her, it’s about the doe-eyed companion that brought her family immeasurable amounts of joy.
“He was very protective of us,” she said. “My children and I want justice for Bandit. No one is above the law.”