{"id":233855,"date":"2026-05-16T15:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/233855\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:17:11","slug":"owner-of-pit-bulls-that-mauled-penny-the-chihuahua-spotted-with-new-pup-and-is-jailed-again-in-westchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/233855\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of pit bulls that mauled Penny the Chihuahua spotted with new pup \u2014 and is jailed again in Westchester"},"content":{"rendered":"

A notorious NYC man whose pit bulls attacked Penny the chihuahua\u00a0<\/a>was spotted with a new pup weeks before he again ran afoul of the law.<\/p>\n

Joseph Columbus, who was\u00a0jailed in December\u00a0<\/a>for repeatedly refusing to tell a New York City judge where his pit bulls Rambo and Zoey were\u00a0after they mauled three dogs<\/a> on the Upper West Side, was recently spotted with a brown puppy on a leash on Columbus Avenue, video obtained by The Post showed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy you taking a picture of me?\u201d Columbus asks in the clip taken March 30 and obtained by The Post.<\/p>\n

Joe Columbus was seen in NYC with a new pup, video obtained by The Post showed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re Joe Columbus,\u201d a woman can be heard telling Columbus, who walks away.<\/p>\n

While Penny survived her May 2025 attack, one other dog was killed by Rambo and Zoey in a separate incident, authorities said, prompting the owners of the victimized pups to sue Columbus in Manhattan Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

He was ordered to turn Rambo and Zoey\u00a0over for possible euthanasia,<\/a>\u00a0but never did.<\/p>\n

This week, Columbus landed behind bars again, after he was hit with a felony reckless endangerment charge in connection with a May 2 incident in which he allegedly refused several times to pull over for cops on the Saw Mill River Parkway, Hastings-on-Hudson police said.<\/p>\n

Columbus, 41, eventually crashed the car \u2014 then refused to leave the vehicle when officers approached, police alleged.<\/p>\n

Video of the incident showed an officer wrestling with Columbus on the roadway, News 12 Westchester reported.<\/a>Three kids ages 6, 10 and 15 were in the car at the time.<\/p>\n

Penny the chihuahua survived the May 2025 mauling. Gabriella Bass<\/p>\n

Columbus repeatedly failed to turn his pit bulls over to authorities. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

He was charged with multiple misdemeanors, including reckless endangerment, fleeing an officer in a motor vehicle, reckless driving and endangering the welfare of a child.<\/p>\n

The incident earlier this month wasn\u2019t the first time Columbus was accused of leading police on a chase.<\/p>\n

He allegedly nearly mowed down pedestrians in Manhattan in June as he tried to escape sheriff\u2019s deputies, who were trying to bring him in for failing to turn over Rambo and Zoey.<\/p>\n

The latest drama comes as Penny\u2019s owner Lauren Claus, along with NYC dog walker Karen Kramer, launched Penny\u2019s Fund earlier this month in collaboration with the Animal Medical Center on the Upper East Side to financially help owners whose pets are attacked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A notorious NYC man whose pit bulls attacked Penny the chihuahua\u00a0was spotted with a new pup weeks before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11640,6530,2850,57,9,24,55,54,56,104,62,58],"class_list":["post-233855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-animal-attacks","tag-dogs","tag-lawsuits","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-police","tag-upper-west-side","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}