NY man who killed girlfriend’s dog by snapping its spine is sentenced to year in prison

NY man who snapped dog’s spine gets year in prison

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A New York man who killed his girlfriend’s dog by snapping its spine has been sentenced to a year behind bars.

Twenty-one-year-old Jonathan King, of Yorktown, was sentenced Tuesday. King has admitted that he killed Libra, a Yorkshire terrier-Maltese mix, in April 2009 by yanking its collar hard enough to dislocate its head from its spine.

Prosecutors say King went to his girlfriend’s house at a time when he knew no one would be home and killed the dog “with no justifiable purpose.”

The dog’s body was found behind a clothes dryer. King was identified when DNA analysis determined that blood found beneath the dog’s claws was his.

Steven Levine, the father of the dog’s owner, says the family considers King “a danger to our family, our community and our society.”