Teen sentenced to five years in 'Justice' animal cruelty case

DALLAS - The last of four young men charged in a high-profile animal cruelty case in Dallas was sentenced Friday.

Animal rights activists spoke out after a judge lowered an agreed sentence of five years to two for 19-year-old Darius Ewing, the alleged ringleader in the case of "Justice," a puppy that was set on fire.

Judge Larry Mitchell said prosecutors failed to prove Ewing used a "deadly weapon." Friday, the judge called a hearing to reconsider the deal and Ewing was sentenced to the original agreed five years after prosecutors proved fire was used in the abuse.

Justice was found badly burned after a group doused the Labrador mix puppy with lighter fluid and set him on fire in April of 2012. DFW Rescue Me took the puppy in, but he died days later.


Richard Valentine, Adrian Ayers and Darius Carey also pleaded guilty in the case. Each received shorter sentences than Ewing.

This is so terrible! There are no words to even begin to describe this horror!

I volunteer at an animal refuge that is a no kill refuge. I have never been more astounded in my life to see just how prevalent animal cruelty is. We just took in 100 dogs, 12 horses, from a person living in a 2 bdr. trailer, 100 dogs just running rampant, a supposed puppie mill but so inter & overbred the animals had multiple physical deficits, the facility I'm talking about did not have the room nor the staff (mostly volunteers) to take it on but somehow we made it work. the point is , this is happening every day, everywhere, animal cruelty is rappant, but the good thing is so are the people that want to help.

Thank you for your time and helping these poor animals.

the only other thing I'd want to post is if you see something report it, it was a report that saved these animals. It literally happenned this last Fri. , we all can help just by doing that