O.C. man enters plea in MySpace animal abuse case
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An Orange County man accused of taking a video of himself abusing rabbits and a dog pleaded not guilty Thursday to six misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty, authorities said.
Joseph Anthony Deiss, 19, surrendered at the Fullerton Justice Center, where he was arraigned and released on $10,000 bail. He is scheduled for a pretrial hearing May 8. Deiss, of Yorba Linda, is accused of throwing a pug and three rabbits 15 to 30 feet in the air and allowing them to hit the ground.
The charges were filed after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals saw a video of the incident on Deiss’ MySpace page and showed it to authorities. None of the animals appeared to be injured.
Deiss, a part-time college student, later apologized and said he had bought the rabbits as food for his two pet boa constrictors.
Here’s what Deiss told The Times about the video Wednesday:
‘I just posted it and kind of forgot about it. I didn’t even realize that anyone was watching.’’It wasn’t meant to be intentionally cruel,’ he said. ‘I can see that it was somewhat bad, but nothing got hurt. . . . People feed their snakes all the time.’
-- Tony Barboza