100 animal advocates rally ahead of hearing for Pinellas man accused of killing dog he adopted days prior

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Ahead of a hearing for a man accused of killing a dog he’d just adopted, about 100 animal advocates held a rally outside the Pinellas County Courthouse on Monday.

"I was so in shock," Robin Warniment, who organized the rally, said. "Tears just started flowing."

Warniment volunteers at Pinellas County Animal services where the dog, Dexter, was adopted from.

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"I loved Dexter. He was 37 pounds of pure love," she said.

Deputies with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said 4-year-old bulldog mix Dexter was found decapitated in a plastic bag floating in the mangroves in Fort De Soto in May. Pinellas County Animal Services used Dexter’s microchip to identify 66-year-old Domingo Rodriguez as his owner.

Rodriguez adopted Dexter just four days before he was found, investigators said. Rodriguez admitted he adopted Dexter, and that he was at Fort De Soto, but told deputies Dexter must’ve ran away overnight the day he adopted him. Deputies, though, said cameras show Rodriguez in the park driving his gray pickup with a large cooler in the bed of the truck shortly before Dexter’s remains were found.

"To establish probable cause, an affidavit for a search warrant must establish two elements," Victor Zamora Jr., Rodriguez’s attorney, said. "One, a person has committed a crime, and two, evidence relevant to the probable cause that is likely to be found at the location to be searched, seeking, and based upon. We have no facts or evidence that my client was the one that committed this crime," Zamora said.

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Dexter’s advocates packed the courtroom with the overflow crowd waiting outside in the hallway. Rodriguez’s attorney argued there wasn’t probable cause for the deputies’ search warrant as Rodriguez listened through an interpreter. He showed little to no emotion throughout the nearly two-hour hearing.

"What facts are there that my client disposed of this? There are no fingerprints on the bag. There are no witnesses," Zamora said. "There’s no smoking gun."

Zamora also argued that husband-wife privilege applies to evidence found in the search warrant, specifically when it comes to Rodriguez’s communication with his wife.

"They [prosecutors] say they’re still investigating. If they're still investigating, why did they arrest my client? Do we live in a society where you can arrest somebody, but then we're still investigating the facts and circumstances of this case? They put the cart before the horse," Zamora said.

The judge, though, disagreed, saying he found probable cause, and he didn’t find that the search warrant was overly broad.

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"The court does deny the motion to squash and suppress at this time," Judge Keith Meyer said.

The judge said since it’s not yet known what was said between Rodriguez and his wife on the phone, if there’s confidential information, it wouldn’t be allowed in court.

The judge also granted the state’s motion related to the conditions of his release requesting Rodriguez not be allowed to reside where animals reside. 

Judge Meyer didn’t grant the second part of the state’s motion related to conditions of Rodriguez’s release, however. That part of the motion asked that Rodriguez not have any animals in his care, custody or control. 

"I’m not going to propose that he can't really be around, have any issues, care, custody or control, because that could be a whole bunch of different scenarios where he winds up, like out on the street some day and somebody asked him to watch this dog," Meyer said. "I'm not going to allow him to, obviously, reside with any animals, nor can he adopt purchase anything like that."

Defense attorneys said Rodriguez doesn’t have any animals right now and, therefore, it’s not an issue.

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