Man Accused of Shooting Stepdaughter’s 1-Year-Old French Bulldog in the Face: 'She Was Like Our Child' By Sean Neumann 17

More than 50 protesters gathered outside a New Jersey courthouse earlier this month to protest a man accused by police of shooting his stepdaughter’s 1-year-old French bulldog in the face last October.

The protesters gathered after the man, Jeffrey Lentz, reportedly rejected a plea deal offered by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office that would have seen him serve five years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty to charges for weapons possession and animal cruelty, according to News 12 New Jersey and Jersey Online.

Instead, the criminal case is now reportedly going to a jury trial.

NJ.com and News 12, citing police, reported last year that Lentz, 56, was arrested in November after police alleged he shot the dog, Ruby, in the face while he and his wife were caring for the animal as his stepdaughter and her husband attended a wedding.

“I trusted them. What daughter wouldn’t trust her parents?” the dog’s owner, Nicole Guarino, told Jersey Online.

The outlet, citing authorities, reported that Lentz initially told Guarino the dog had been injured in an animal attack, but investigators later said a veterinarian found a bullet lodged in the dog’s jaw. Lentz was arrested days later and charged with animal cruelty, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and possession of a large-capacity magazine, according to Jersey Online.

The outlet reported that Guarino and her husband, Nick, were in attendance at the hearing earlier this month where Lentz denied the plea deal. “She wasn’t property. She was family,” the dog’s owner said, according to Jersey Online. “She was like our child.”

News 12 reported that Guarino and other protesters have since returned to rally outside the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office earlier this month to call for authorities to put Lentz behind bars. Some protesters’ signs read “Justice 4 Ruby” while others called for Lentz to receive the “maximum sentence” for the alleged animal cruelty, according to video aired by News 12.

“All I want is my dog back and she’s not coming back,” the dog’s owner Nicole Guarino told the outlet during a tearful interview outside the county prosecutor’s office earlier this month. “This is all we can do, is to try to make sure her life mattered.”

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Guarino and her husband told News 12 that her mother and stepfather have still not explained what happened to Ruby while she and her husband were away.

“We just generally want to make sure that this could never happen again to anyone else with a fur baby at home,” Guarino’s husband told the outlet. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Lentz is due back in court on March 16, according to Jersey Online.