A San Diego County corrections deputy is facing criminal charges after allegedly putting her neighbor's yappy Maltese in the trunk of her car and abandoning it about 20 miles from her Hemet home, authorities said.
Diane M. Brown, 42, was booked into a Riverside County jail Thursday and released on $5,000 bond. A court date has been set for Nov. 20.
Brown works as a corrections deputy at the Vista jail, sheriff's officials confirmed yesterday.
Brown's frustration with her neighbor's fluffy white dog, named Spike, began more than a year ago when she claimed the dog's barking was a nuisance, said Riverside County Animal Services spokesman John Welsh.
Brown took the dog's owner to court, but the judge threw out the case.
On Monday, it appears Brown took matters into her own hands.
Employees at the Cherry Valley Water District in Beaumont said they saw a woman take a dog out her trunk and dump it in front of the building, Welsh said. The woman returned about a minute later, apparently to remove the dog's collar.
Two surveillance cameras captured the incident, and one witness copied down the woman's license plate. The witnesses brought the unharmed dog to a veterinarian, who scanned the dog's microchip and called its owner.
Hemet police later booked Brown into jail on suspicion of being in possession of stolen property. Animal Services officials also are pursuing a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty for abandoning the dog, which is valued at $2,000, Welsh said.
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