Posted on 06/20/2002 11:14:10 AM PDT by Temple Owl
Llama attacker gets three years in prison
Brandon R. Eldred, who pleaded guilty in the beating of three pet llamas in East Lake, begs for leniency. But the judge says a probation violation "blew that opportunity."
By ED QUIOCO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 20, 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brandon R. Eldred, who pleaded guilty in the beating of three pet llamas in East Lake, begs for leniency. But the judge says a probation violation "blew that opportunity."
A weeping Brandon R. Eldred pleaded with a judge for leniency, saying he should be sentenced lightly for his crimes because he was remorseful, had found religion and had changed his ways.
But this time, the argument that had once kept Eldred out of jail didn't work.
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Mark Shames sentenced Eldred to three years in state prison followed by two years of probation for his role in the brutal attacks on three pet llamas in East Lake.
Shames made it clear Wednesday that any chance the 18-year-old may have had at avoiding prison time was hurt when he was arrested last month for violating his probation in another case.
"Mr. Eldred blew that opportunity before I even had a chance to give it to him," Shames said.
Describing the attacks as atrocious and a "shock to the conscience of this court," Shames said there was no excuse for what Eldred and his friend and co-defendant, Robert "Bobby" Pettyjohn, did to the pets.
Wednesday's ruling brings to an end what prosecutors described as the county's most egregious case of animal abuse, eclipsing "anything that we have seen in this county in recent memory," Assistant State Attorney Bill Burgess said during the hearing.
Eldred and Pettyjohn were charged with the golf-club beating of two pet llamas, sodomizing and killing a nursing mother llama and permanently disfiguring a baby llama during an early llama in the face with a titanium meat cleaver.
Both were charged with shooting bulls in Hillsborough County with hunting bows and razor-tipped arrows, killing one bull and injuring another. Pettyjohn also faced several other charges.
Pettyjohn received three years in prison for the Hillsborough charges, and in April he agreed to serve five additional years for the charges in Pinellas. Pettyjohn's eight years in state prison will be followed by five years of probation.
In contrast, Eldred was sentenced to probation and house arrest for his part in the attacks in Hillsborough County. Eldred pleaded guilty last year to the llama attacks, a plea that came with no deals from the state.
At his sentencing Wednesday, Eldred and his attorney, David Parry, blamed Pettyjohn for the attacks and for supplying Eldred with the drugs that both teenagers used while brutalizing the llamas. Parry said Eldred was different from Pettyjohn and that without Pettyjohn, Eldred never would have committed the attacks.
In a short and emotional statement to the judge, Eldred asked to be set free.
"I want to make things right," said Eldred, who wept throughout much of the hearing. "I don't want to be a part of this incarceration. It's not for me."
Eldred echoed that sentiment in a five-page, handwritten letter to Shames, telling the judge that he wanted to get out of jail and return to "a life of joy, family and success for myself."
"There has been a lot of terrible things said about me, your honor, but you have to believe me when I say, I'm not that type of young man," Eldred wrote. "Anybody who knows me for who I really am, knows I'm a good person through and through."
Keith Appenzeller, who owned two of the llamas that were attacked, urged the judge not to believe Eldred's remorse. Eldred has had more than a year to apologize to the Appenzellers for attacking their pets, but has not done so, Appenzeller said.
Shames said he has received numerous letters and postcards from around the country urging him to sentence Eldred to several years in prison. One letter from the Humane Society of the United States urged the judge to give a stern sentence on behalf of its 7-million members.
"What makes Mr. Eldred's crimes so shocking is that they were such calculated and unrestrained acts of cruelty," said the humane society letter.
One of the main things Shames considered before he sentenced Eldred was his violation of probation after catching a break from the Hillsborough judge in January.
Shames said he would have expected that Eldred would be on his best behavior while on probation and awaiting sentencing in Pinellas. Instead, Eldred was cited in March for careless driving in Polk County for drag racing another vehicle and later admitted to a deputy that he had consumed alcohol, according to a state Department of Corrections report.
"I'm left here thinking, "Was that his best behavior?' " Shames said.
Shames sentenced Eldred to spend the three years in a youthful offender facility so that he can be housed with others his age. Eldred also must undergo treatment for substance abuse and is prohibited from having contact with animals and pets while on probation.
The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office recommended that Eldred be sentenced to five years in prison, followed by five years of probation, which is what Pettyjohn received. Eldred was facing a maximum of 15 years in prison for the three counts of felony animal cruelty.
"Misdirected defendants cannot set themselves on a course of wanton death and destruction and expect to avoid the consequences," Burgess wrote in a memorandum to the judge.
Dressed in a dark blue jail outfit, Eldred wept as bailiffs led him from the courtroom. He turned to his family and mouthed the words "I'm sorry."
I say he's a Democrat. As another poster once put it, prisons are one of the great things about America. Over a million Democrats are behind bars and can't vote.
"There has been a lot of terrible things said about me, your honor, but you have to believe me when I say, I'm not that type of young man," Eldred wrote. "Anybody who knows me for who I really am, knows I'm a good person through and through."Wrong, you piece of trash. Good people don't go around
beating ... two pet llamas [with golf clubs], sodomizing and killing a nursing mother llama and permanently disfiguring a baby llama in the face with a titanium meat cleaver.
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