Hudson Valley man charged with killing dogs heads to trial
DANBURY, Conn. — A Hudson Valley man charged in connection with killing two pet dogs that escaped from a Ridgefield, Conn., yard was denied a pretrial diversionary program that could have dismissed the case.
Judge Robin Pavia denied Michael Konschak’s request for accelerated rehabilitation in Wednesday in state Superior Court in Danbury, saying the allegations were too serious to be ignored.
Konschak, 62, of the town of Carmel in Putnam County, was charged in February with two counts of tampering with evidence, forgery, interfering with an officer, two counts of archery hunting deer (private land)/failing to have written consent from the landowner and two counts of violating wild game hunting regulations, judicial records show.
Konschak’s attorney Wednesday described the November incident as a hunting accident. In a statement to the court, Konschak called it a “case of mistaken identity,” saying he believed the animals were coyotes.
Konschak’s case, including charges and all documents, had been sealed since he applied for the probation program last month. Files were unsealed after Wednesday’s hearing.
Danbury State’s Attorney David R. Applegate said Erin Caviola’s German shepherds, Cimo and Lieben, were killed after escaping Nov. 18 from her Ridgefield yard, when an animal, possibly a bear, tore down part of the 6-foot fence enclosing her property.
Caviola said she didn’t discover their fate until almost a month later when someone alerted her to photos of her dead dogs shared with a taxidermist, who was asked to preserve the animals.
Following an investigation, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection charged Konschak in connection with the deaths.
However, Konschak’s lawyer, Brian Romano, said the deaths were the result of a hunting accident.
Konschak, a respiratory therapist, was in a hunting blind on a nearby property when the incident occurred. He saw the dogs chasing a doe and a fawn and shot them with a crossbow, Romano said Wednesday. Konschak believed the dogs were coyotes, Romano said, adding the dogs were not wearing collars. But Applegate pointed out the dogs were not wearing collars because they were in a fenced yard.
“These weren’t roaming dogs by any means,” Applegate said.
Konschak then skinned the dogs and attempted to tan them to preserve what he believed were coyote pelts, Romano said.
Applegate argued there were
inconsistencies in Konschak’s story. Even if Konschak mistook the dogs for coyotes when he fired the crossbow, he then “very quickly cut those dogs up,” despite Cimo having been neutered and Lieben’s hysterectomy scar, Applegate said.
“These were very clearly domesticated animals,” Applegate said. Konschak also claimed the dogs were “mangey,” according to Applegate, yet he “wanted their pelts as a rug.”
Applegate said Konschak hasn’t been charged with animal cruelty but said more charges could be pending.
Konschak had hunted on the private property for 20 years, Romano said. Though he had verbal permission to hunt on the property, Applegate said Konschak allegedly forged documents to appear to have written authorization.
Romano said Konschak decided to come forward and cooperated with authorities because “he couldn’t live with himself.”
However, Applegate questioned if Konschak actually cooperated, saying he didn’t come forward until after investigators questioned him, despite being informed by taxidermists that the animals were dogs, not coyotes, and several flyers had been posted in the area about the missing German shepherds.
Flanked by posters of Cimo and Lieben, Caviola read a statement to the court, saying she can’t get closure for her beloved pets’ deaths. Her family has been consumed by the deaths and the “horribly gruesome” pictures that showed the mutilated dogs, she said.
“I just can’t believe anyone would do this,” Caviola said in a phone interview with Hearst Connecticut Media Group before the hearing. “We can’t get those images out of our head, how someone could look into their faces, and shoot and kill them and then take them and skin them and behead them.”
Since the dogs went missing, Caviola’s family has used “every ounce of our free time” to find them. Receiving tips from friends, strangers and the Ridgefield community, they answered every phone call and dropped whatever they were doing to investigate a possible sighting, according to Caviola.
But while the search was ongoing, Caviola said Konschak kept their deaths a secret for his “disgusting desire to taxidermy a family’s pets.”
In a statement he read in court, Konschak said since discovering the animals were pet dogs, he has been in “a state of profound emotional despair.” Konschak said he has been a lifelong dog and pet owner and was “deeply ashamed.” Though he acknowledged “nothing I do or say” would change the outcome, Konschak said he was open to remedy the situation, including offering financial restitution or replacement.
Romano said since the incident, Konschak has completed a safe hunting course and has no interest in hunting again.
Since the charges were filed, an online petition, which had more than 60,000 signatures as of Wednesday, was launched to raise awareness of the case and to seek justice, Caviola said.
Dozens of people, including the family, supporters for the family and animal advocates, packed the courtroom’s benches. After the ruling, supporters, including Desmond’s Army, stood outside the courthouse waiting for Konschak to exit. Some animal advocates held posters, calling for “Justice for Cimo & Lieben.”
The two dogs, half-brother and -sister, would have been 10 years old this year.
Caviola said she wants to get their bodies back and acknowledged in court that she still doesn’t know where their heads are. She did receive a bit of their fur and bones from state officials and buried the remains in her yard Monday.
“We don’t feel very safe or secure without them here,” she continued, though the family does have a younger dog. “Just the sense of security any dog brings to the house is something that we don’t have and something’s missing from our family that we cannot get back.”