As if we needed one, here is just another example of why we hate lawyers!
It takes a sick individual to do this if you ask me! Makes me sick to my stomach, ya know?
Freehold attorney fined $2,500 for trapping, drowning squirrels
SPRING LAKE — A Freehold-based attorney pleaded guilty to animal cruelty after his wife turned him in for using a "Havahart" trap to capture squirrels then drowning the animals in their backyard fountain pond, authorities said.
Edward F. Colrick, 62, of Atlantic Avenue, pleaded guilty to the animal cruelty charge on Tuesday in Spring Lake Heights municipal court, where Judge George C. Pappas fined him $2,500 and ordered him to cease trapping animals, said Victor "Buddy" Amato, chief law enforcement officer for the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Colrick, a partner in the Freehold-based law firm of McGovern, Provost and Colrick, was represented by fellow partner Timothy J. Provost, who told Pappas that Colrick did not know it was against the law to drown squirrels, and that the squirrels were causing damage to his property, according to Amato.
"What he should have done after trapping the animal was call a professional so the animal could be relocated. This is no way to take out an animal," Amato said, adding that a necropsy was performed on the animal by the Cornell Medical Institute, which confirmed it died by drowning.
After a three- or four-year struggle with her husband over the trapping and killing of squirrels at their Spring Lake home, Patricia F. Colrick called police on Oct. 17 to report his transgressions, according to a written statement she provided to the Monmouth County SPCA in October.
"I witnessed my husband capturing a squirrel in a 'Have A Heart' (sic) trap on the floor of our exterior side porch, carry the cage with the live animal in it, and put the cage with the squirrel in it into the small pool at the foot of my antique fountain in our backyard," she wrote.
"When I saw what he was doing, I immediately tapped loudly on the kitchen window but my husband ignored me," she explained in the statement detailing the animal cruelty incident.
"My husband has killed squirrels in this way for at least 3 or 4 years by baiting the trap with peanut butter and setting it on our side porch stairs, which leads to the patio and backyard," Patricia Colrick wrote in her statement. "His more recent way of killing them has been to drown them in our fountain pond, and he has refused to stop this senseless killing of innocent animals by saying that he feels he is saving his house from squirrels."
Patricia Colrick told investigators her husband blamed squirrels for damage to the woodwork of their home.
She went on to say she heard the sound of the outside water spigot for the hose on their patio being turned off after her husband filled "the fountain pool with enough water to drown the animal."
Sgt. Matthew Juliano the Monmouth County SPCA responded to the scene and found the dead animal inside the trap in the water-filled fountain, Amato said. The trap was confiscated, he added.
A phone call to the Freehold law office of Edward Colrick was not immediately returned.
I think that there is probably a special place in Hell for folks that deliberately cause harm to animals and/or children! It's bad enough for anyone...but when it turns out to be a so-called "officer-of-the-court", it makes it even worse!
The world seems to have more and more nut cases showing their true colors each and every day! Time to take out some of the trash, if you know what I mean!
C'mon, my friends, and let's get some fresh coffee. We can sit out on the patio this morning! You can help me protect the squirrels from any lawyers that might be lurking around!
