{"id":10118,"date":"2025-10-18T18:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T18:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/10118\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T18:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T18:39:10","slug":"prosecutors-drop-criminal-charges-against-florida-man-who-abandoned-dog-during-hurricane-milton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/10118\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors drop criminal charges against Florida man who abandoned dog during Hurricane Milton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Criminal charges have been dropped against a Florida man who authorities said abandoned his dog<\/a> in floodwaters near a highway as residents evacuated Florida’s Gulf Coast last year shortly before Hurricane Milton made landfall.<\/p>\n

The case led to legislation signed into law this year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, enhancing penalties on people who abandon pets during natural disasters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tampa-area prosecutors on Wednesday filed a court notice that they were dropping charges against the 24-year-old man from Ruskin, Florida, who had faced a count of felony aggravated animal cruelty. The “nolle prosequi” notice usually is filed when there’s a lack of evidence or witnesses.<\/p>\n

The bull terrier, nicknamed Trooper <\/a>by the Florida Highway Patrol, was alive when he was found by a trooper in floodwaters up to his chest along Interstate 75 in the Tampa area as residents evacuated Florida’s Gulf Coast hours before the Category 3 hurricane made landfall.<\/p>\n

Troopers brought him to a vet<\/a>, where he was examined for injuries and received a clean bill of health. He eventually was adopted by a couple<\/a> in the Fort Lauderdale area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Criminal charges have been dropped against a Florida man who authorities said abandoned his dog in floodwaters near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[353,4502,265,28,30,29,1846,9875,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-10118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-animal-cruelty","9":"tag-atlantic-hurricane-season","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-hurricane","15":"tag-indictment","16":"tag-ron-desantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}