Former pet-sitting owner charged with cruelty

A Copiague woman who once ran a pet-sitting business was charged with animal cruelty for leaving two dogs to die of hunger and thirst, locked in wire cages in an abandoned house, said the chief of the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Antonia Bonanno, 38, was arrested Saturday after SPCA officers searched her former Centereach home and found the emaciated pit bulls, said Suffolk SPCA chief Roy Gross.

Bonanno said her husband, Paul Marrone, framed her as part of a nasty divorce. "I have a recorded conversation that he threatened to get me in trouble with animal cruelty so that I would lose custody of the kids," who are 9 and 3, she said.
Marrone, 39, of Commack, said he did report her, but only to help the animals. "All I was trying to do was help the dogs out," he said. "When I found out she wasn't taking care of the dogs correctly, I called it in."

Gross said they received a tip from neighbors in mid-September that dogs had been left in an abandoned home at 24 Lake Grove Blvd. They scheduled meetings with Bonanno to get into the house, Gross said, but she didn't show."All she had to do, if she didn't want the dogs, is either call us or bring it to the animal shelter," he said. "She didn't meet us, so we had to get a search warrant," he said.

Suffolk property records list the buyers of the house in September 2000 as Paul and Antonia Marrone, then of 22 Floral Ave. in Holtsville.

SPCA officers found two severely underweight female pit bulls Sept. 23, both about 1 to 2 years old, in small, soiled cages. One weighed 35 pounds and the other 38 pounds. Unopened cans of dog food sat atop the cages, Gross said, but the dogs hadn't been fed or given water for at least three days. He said a veterinarian later found their kidneys had begun to fail.

"They were near death," Gross said. Both had hookworm and whipworm, and one dog's paws were bleeding. They were taken to Brookhaven Animal Shelter and have been adopted, a town spokesman said.

Bonanno ran Apaws Pet Sitting/Apaws Bed & Biscuit Inc. from the Centereach address, according to a 2002 state filing.

Bonanno said she started the business in 1998 but had to shut it down last year because it "was taking a toll on my life."

Bonanno said she had rescued the pit bulls and was trying to find homes for them when she was forced to leave her house.

She is scheduled to appear in Suffolk County First District Court on Jan. 25 on two counts of animal cruelty. If convicted, Bonanno faces a maximum of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.