A Florida prosecutor has dropped the felony criminal case against the man who drew national attention after being accused of tying his bull terrier dog to a fence along Interstate 75 and abandoning it in the face of an approaching major hurricane. The dog’s new owner is furious.
Giovanny Aldama Garcia, 24, of Ruskin, Florida, was facing a felony charge of aggravated animal cruelty. The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office, led by Susan Lopez, suddenly dropped the case this week.
Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis had called the dog’s treatment “unacceptable,” and warned the person accused of abandoning the dog, “We’re going to hold you accountable.”
Lopez, the elected state prosecutor whose office was handling the case, had said she couldn’t imagine anyone tying a pet to a fence amid a natural disaster. Ahead of a criminal trial in the case, expected to begin late this year or early in 2026, prosecutors filed paperwork on Wednesday abandoning the case.
The dog — now known as Trooper after the Florida Highway Patrol officer who rescued him — was adopted by Frank and Carla Spina of Parkland, Florida. In a new interview Thursday night, Frank Spina said Lopez personally called to tell him the state was dropping the case — an act he said was “chickening out.”
He said that during the call, Lopez said prosecutors had little to no evidence that Aldama Garcia had tied the dog to a pole and cited a language barrier between him and investigators.
Court records showed that during questioning, Aldama Garcia acknowledged dumping the dog on the side of the interstate during the evacuation ahead of Hurricane Milton and said he had been trying unsuccessfully to get rid of the dog for weeks.
“The defendant stated he observed the dog in standing water in heavy rain during a hurricane evacuation and left him behind,” the trooper wrote in his arrest report.
Spina said he was flabbergasted: “Well, did he tie himself? Did Trooper tie himself? Put it in front of a jury and ask ‘Do you believe Trooper the dog tied himself to a pole?’”
Spina said just two months ago, the state attorney’s office called this its most important case. Now, he believes Lopez was afraid she would lose if the case went to trial.
“It’s politics. It’s being afraid to lose the big case on TV,” he said in a phone interview with Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
The prosecutor did not immediately return a phone message to her office late Thursday.
Last week, Aldama Garcia’s defense attorney, Tony Lopez of Tampa, said in an interview that a plea deal was out of the question, unless the state would seek a lesser criminal charge. If it didn’t, he said, he planned to take the matter to trial.
“It’s based on lies,” Tony Lopez said in the interview. “He had to quit his college, he was kicked out of his job, he had to change numbers. All because someone misquoted what happened.”
He said the state can’t prove that Aldama Garcia abused or intentionally harmed his dog.
Lopez, the defense lawyer, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message late Thursday.
Spina said Florida lawmakers were outraged enough over the suspected abuse to demand a change in law.
Those efforts resulted in Trooper’s Law, which makes it illegal to abandon a dog that is restrained during a natural disaster. It also imposed a fine up to $10,000 and a prison term up to five years — what Aldama Garcia was previously facing, if convicted.
“We all got this law passed, and for what?” Spina said. “Just for the prosecutor’s office to throw in the towel and say, ‘Oh, well, he had a language barrier, and we can’t prove that he tied him to a fence.’”
“I’m really disgusted.”
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.
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