{"id":13051,"date":"2025-10-20T22:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13051\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:41:07","slug":"trooper-the-dogs-new-owner-upset-over-dropped-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13051\/","title":{"rendered":"Trooper the dog’s new owner upset over dropped charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Charges have been dropped against a Hillsborough County man who was accused of leaving a dog tied up<\/a> as Hurricane Milton approached the area last year, leaving his new owner upset.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Charges have been dropped against a Hillsborough County man who was accused of leaving a dog tied up as Hurricane Milton approached
\nTrooper\u2019s new owner, Frank Spina, said he is \u201cdisgusted\u201d to learn that the charges have been dropped
\nThe charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence
\n\u201cTrooper\u2019s Law\u201d<\/a>\u00a0makes it a third-degree felony for anyone to restrain or abandon a dog during a declared disaster or evacuation<\/p>\n

The dog, \u201cTrooper,\u201d was found attached to a fence in rising floodwaters while Hurricane Milton approached last year. A new family later adopted Trooper.<\/p>\n

Trooper dealt with some health issues within the past year but is now doing \u201cfantastic\u201d, Trooper\u2019s owner, Frank Spina, said.<\/p>\n

Giovanny Aldama Garcia of Ruskin was facing charges of aggravated animal cruelty after\u00a0he admitted to leaving his dog on the side of the road. The charges were dropped after State Attorney Suzy Lopez\u2019s office said that there is not enough evidence to prove that Trooper was intentionally tied to the fence.<\/p>\n

\"Frank<\/p>\n

Frank Spina adopted Trooper after the storm. (Spectrum News)<\/p>\n

Spina told Spectrum News he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d to hear that the charges had been dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo find out a year later that they\u2019re going to withdraw the charges because they lack evidence? There\u2019s clearly something wrong with this picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said that the FHP trooper who found the dog recently said during the deposition process that he found the dog stuck to the fence by its collar.<\/p>\n

With nothing found at the scene, like a rope or chain, that Trooper would\u2019ve been tied up with, the office could not legally move forward with the case.<\/p>\n

As a result of Trooper being abandoned during the storm, \u201cTrooper\u2019s Law\u201d was made. \u201cTrooper\u2019s Law<\/a>\u201d\u00a0makes it a third-degree felony for anyone to restrain or abandon a dog during a declared disaster or evacuation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Charges have been dropped against a Hillsborough County man who was accused of leaving a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,276,1802,115,139,2965,277,275,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-13051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-hillsborough-county","10":"tag-hurricane-milton","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-pets","14":"tag-public-safety","15":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","16":"tag-tampa","17":"tag-tampa-headlines","18":"tag-tampa-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13051","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=13051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}