SAN ANTONIO – A woman caught on video hitting her puppy multiple times was sentenced on Tuesday to eight years of probation.
Havanna Dejonet Miller, 23, had accepted a guilty plea in late September after she pleaded no contest to a third-degree felony animal cruelty charge.
In addition to the probation sentence, Bexar County Judge Stephanie Boyd said that Miller must serve 150 hours of community service and pay a $2,000 fine.
Miller also can’t own any pets or be employed as a home healthcare provider, Boyd said.
Earlier this year, a video showed Miller striking her 3-month-old poodle, Thanos, on a West Side apartment balcony multiple times.
Miller was later arrested without incident and was formally indicted in February, according to San Antonio Animal Care Services (ACS).
WARNING: The video below contains content that may be disturbing. KSAT decided to leave out most of the audio and only show a small clip of the abuse.
ACS said the poodle was placed with an experienced foster family during the case.
A judge granted ACS legal custody of the poodle. The dog was eventually transferred to an out-of-state rescue group and has since been adopted, ACS said in September.
During witness testimony on Tuesday, a former ACS animal cruelty investigator said she observed Miller in the video strike the poodle with a “leash-like object” several times.
However, the investigator said it is not clear how many times the dog was struck, as a crate blocked the view in the video.
The defense called Miller as a witness, who admitted her actions “were not OK.” Miller told Boyd that a jail sanction would be “a major setback,” and pointed to her school grades and her job.
Before Miller accepted a guilty conviction, Boyd provided her with two options.
The first choice was for her to serve jail time for the animal cruelty charge and be given eight years of deferred adjudication. This meant her charge would be removed from her record if she followed all her court orders.
The second choice was for her to accept a conviction, serve no jail time and be placed on probation. However, this meant her felony charge would remain on her record.
Miller ultimately chose the second option.
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