{"id":9094,"date":"2025-10-17T23:49:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T23:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/9094\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T23:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T23:49:21","slug":"criminal-charges-dropped-against-florida-man-who-abandoned-dog-before-hurricane-miltons-landfall-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/9094\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal charges dropped against Florida man who abandoned dog before Hurricane Milton&#8217;s landfall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Criminal charges have been dropped against a Florida man who authorities said <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/florida-hurricane-milton-dog-evacuation-10ebf22d89c85feda5d3d9321ca9f7f9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:abandoned his dog;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">abandoned his dog<\/a> in floodwaters near a highway as residents evacuated Florida\u2019s Gulf Coast last year shortly before <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hurricane-milton-florida-7f60bbe9c6295f2ebef077eca2c1b4e1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Hurricane Milton;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Hurricane Milton<\/a> made landfall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The case <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/animal-cruelty-penalties-desantis-hurricane-9783454edc6af48718e26dab9371a92e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:led to legislation;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">led to legislation<\/a> signed into law this year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, enhancing penalties on people who abandon pets during natural disasters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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 \u201cnolle prosequi\u201d notice usually is filed when there&#8217;s a lack of evidence or witnesses.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bull terrier, nicknamed Trooper 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\u2019s Gulf Coast hours before the Category 3 hurricane made landfall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Troopers brought him to a vet, where he was examined for injuries and received a clean bill of health. He eventually was adopted by a couple in the Fort Lauderdale area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Criminal charges have been dropped against a Florida man who authorities said abandoned his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1080,1618,9114,28,30,618,29,536,9113],"class_list":["post-9094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-criminal-charges","tag-fla","tag-floodwaters","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-highway-patrol","tag-florida-news","tag-gulf-coast","tag-ruskin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094","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=9094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}