FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A man was arrested on more than half a dozen animal cruelty charges on Friday after police said he “excessively and repeatedly inflicted pain and suffering” while killing an iguana on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
The seven felony animal cruelty charges against Dennis Joseph Maguire, 54, were later reduced to two by a Broward County judge.
According to police, Maguire unleashed his dog and allowed it to pursue and attack the iguana, then picked the iguana up by the tail and slammed it into the grass, the sidewalk and a rock “multiple times” and stomped on the reptile.
Two witnesses saw what happened, police said. One of them told police that Maguire walked away after killing the iguana.
An arrest report states that Maguire admitted to killing the iguana and said he slammed it on a rock to “finish killing it.”
“The Defendant added that this is the manner with which he kills iguanas in his backyard,” the Fort Lauderdale Police Department report states. “He further advised that killing them in that manner wasn’t a problem because it was on his property.”
But, the report states, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission provides a list of ways to humanely kill nonnative reptiles, and “this manner is not one listed on (its) site.”
Police said he admitted to leaving the iguana on the sidewalk and going home, but said he came back to throw its body away “because he didn’t want tourists to see (it).”
They said he then remarked, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Maguire was taken into custody in the 3000 block of North Ocean Boulevard.
While FLPD arrested Maguire on one count each for each instance where he allegedly slammed the iguana to the ground ― and for unleashing the dog ― a judge only found probable cause for two counts, asking rhetorically, “If someone is shot six times, can the suspect be charged with six counts of murder?”
Maguire was given a $5,000 bond and no longer appeared in Broward Sheriff’s Office jail records as of Monday.
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