Waukegan man admits to beating dogs with hammers
A Waukegan man admitted under oath Monday to beating several pit bulls at his home with a hammer and wooden sticks, but insisted it was necessary to get them to stop fighting.
Juan Rositas, 49, denied ever hitting a dog hard enough to kill, but said he would use hammers or sticks from a wood pile to frighten them.
"I would swing the sledgehammer at them to scare them," he said on the stand Monday during a pretrial evidentiary hearing. "A few times they would be fighting, so I would use sticks or the hammer to break them up."
In a strange turn of events, Rositas took the stand in front of Judge James Booras Monday after defense attorney Robert Ritacca filed a motion to dismiss charges. The defense argues that all the evidence collected at Rositas' home and backyard earlier this year was not obtained lawfully because the Waukegan man was never properly served with a search warrant.
Rositas is charged in two separate criminal cases, one for the crimes against a family member who lived in the home with him, and a second for the crimes against the animals.
In the first case, he faces up to 15 counts, including armed violence, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated domestic battery and intimidation. In the second, he faces nine charges, including armed violence, animal torture and aggravated cruelty to animals. The animal abuse charges allege he tied up and beat one dog with a sledgehammer, suffocated a second with a plastic bag, and then struck a third dog in the body.
Rositas, the only defense witness Monday, testified the home he was living in was owned by a family member who had moved into a nursing home. He testified that he and his wife owned about a dozen dogs in the 2½ years they lived there, and initially answered "no" when asked if he attacked any of the dogs with a hammer or a stick.
On cross-examination, Rositas admitted he did hit the dogs with sticks and the hammer in order to break them up when the dogs would fight. He said all three dogs just "passed away" between October 2014 and January 2015.
The bodies of all three dogs were exhumed from the backyard and examined by investigators earlier this year. Rositas was charged in April.
He faces 10 years to 30 years in prison if he's convicted of the attacks against the family member, officials said. He also faces 3 years to 7 years in prison if convicted of the attacks against the animals.
He remains held in Lake County jail on $750,000 bail, authorities said.
Prior to Rositas taking the stand, Ritacca said the Waukegan man rejected a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for about 17 years.