LAUDERHILL, Fla. — A Lauderhill man is facing an aggravated animal cruelty charge after police said he subjected a woman’s dog to repeated “blunt force trauma” and tried to blame the abuse injuries on a computer monitor mishap.
Authorities said the dog’s owner left him in the care of Gongtao Sun, 37, on April 18 while she worked. The two appeared to have been living together with the dog at an apartment in the 5500 block of North University Drive.
According to an arrest report from the Lauderhill Police Department, the woman was working that afternoon but had a video feed of her dog, named Chepe, in his crate. Detectives said the camera fell over and Sun sent the woman a photo of Chepe, in which he “looked normal,” and fixed the camera, but it “fell over again.”
Police said Sun let the owner know that Chepe had “bumped his head” but was OK. The report states, “She was not getting any answers as to why Sun was not answering her calls and why the camera was not positioned correctly.”
Police said at around 4:30 p.m., the woman spoke to Sun on the phone and “asked him to bring Chepe to the vet.”
“Sun sent (the woman) a video holding Chepe, but Chepe was not moving,” the report states. “Chepe’s head was swollen.”
The woman wasn’t able to get home from work until 8 p.m. and saw Chepe still home, injured.
Police said Sun claimed that he had gone to the bathroom and found Chepe “underneath the computer monitor having a seizure.” Police said he claimed that the dog “got tangled in the computer wires,” causing it to fall on his head.
They said the woman asked Sun to take the dog to the veterinarian.
“He just needs to rest,” police said he told her. “Hopefully he will learn his lesson. I don’t have money to take him to the vet.”
Police said the woman took Chepe to the veterinarian, who documented severe head trauma, seizures, neck bruising, eye hemorrhaging and abdominal injuries inconsistent with that of a falling computer monitor.
“The injuries are more consistent with a blunt force trauma to the head that was inflicted repeated times and the swelling around his neck can indicate choking,” the report states.
The dog’s owner later told detectives that veterinary staff told her Chepe was “a vegetable” with a 10% chance of survival, according to the report. Veterinarians had recommended euthanasia, but Chepe “was able to stand” but not “able to fully walk” at a veterinary appointment on Monday.
“It is possible that Chepe will have neurological deficits in the future as a result of this incident,” LPD Detective Alexandra Johnson wrote. “At this time, it is unclear if he will return to a normal functioning dog like he was before.”
With the dog “still recovering” and facing “a long road ahead,” the woman began staying somewhere else, the report states.
Police arrested Sun on Tuesday and he appeared in Broward bond court on Wednesday, where a judge ordered he be held on a $20,000 bond, receive a mental health evaluation and not possess any animals or have contact with Chepe’s owner.
As of Wednesday afternoon, he remained in the Broward Main Jail.
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