PET HOARDER BUSTED, AGAIN
Despite judge’s orders, dogs, cats, guinea pigs fill Qns. home
A court order couldn’t stop a serial animal hoarder from again turning her Queens home into a house of horrors, authorities said Thursday.
Elizabeth Grant, 53, who served jail time in other animal cruelty cases, was busted again when cops found a menagerie of dogs, cats, turtles, guinea pigs and a rabbit living in squalor in her Queens home, prosecutors said.
Grant kept more than 50 animals in a Jackson Heights home she shares with her elderly mother — despite a judge’s order banning her from owning or caring for pets until 2028, said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
She faces 141 animal cruelty
and criminal contempt-related charges, and could face three years in prison. She was arraigned
in Queens Criminal Court and ordered released without bail until her next court appearance March 22.
Grant’s latest hoarding came to light Nov. 26 when a worker with Adult Protective Services came calling to check on her mother and saw the animals.
The worker was assailed by the powerful stench of ammonia, from urine, and saw “excessive feces all over the floor,” Queens prosecutors said.
Police and animal welfare workers rescued 29 critters from the home, many of them emaciated and matted with dirt and feces. One dog had blood around the mouth, another had a rash under an eye, according to criminal complaints.
Some of the pets scurried off to avoid capture, prosecutors said. Police returned with a warrant on Wednesday to rescue 23 cats and eight fish, one of the criminal complaints alleges.
Grant was found guilty of 108 counts of animal cruelty in March 2018 after authorities found 55 cats, 12 dogs and two turtles in her home in 2016.
She was sentenced to a year in jail in that case, which she served awaiting trial, and three years’ probation The animals were mistreated and malnourished, and a dozen had to be euthanized.
Later in 2018, after her release from jail, Grant shoved a probation officer down several steps after that officer found more malnourished animals in her home.
She was sentenced to another six months in jail in that incident — but had already served that time during her 14-month stay on Rikers Island before her bench trial.