Town nuisance officer responds to animal 'torture' charge
A commercial nuisance trapper who was arrested on charges of inhumanely killing an animal last Wednesday by Shelter Island Town Police gave his account of the circumstances of the case the next day.
Islander Scott Lechmanski, 50, a licensed nuisance animal trapper, wrote in a posting on this newspaper’s website that he had removed a mother racoon and her four babies from a Hay Beach house on May 6, and dropped one of the babies, which his dog picked up. He wrote it was “so mangled I did exactly what I had learned in my DEC training: chest compression to kill the animal.”
He wrote he has been a nuisance trapper “for the last 30 years with an unblemished record.”
Town Police issued a press release on Wednesday, May 18 announcing that Mr. Lechmanski had been arrested at 7:15 p.m. and charged with torturing and killing an animal. He was released without bail and scheduled to return to Shelter Island Justice Court at a later date.
Police said the arrest was the result of an investigation following a complaint.
Asked to comment on Mr. Lechmanski’s account of the incident, Town Police Chief James Read this week said he was confident that the appropriate steps had been taken in the case.
He said the facts of the complaint, which he declined to detail, warranted the arrest. “The arrest was based on the nature of the incident and the credibility of the complaint,” he said. Police consulted with the Suffolk County ASPCA and the state DEC before proceding with the arrest, he said.
How the matter is prosecuted with be up to the assistant district attorney who handles the case in Justice Court. A conviction on the charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
The complainant, Chief Read added, was a witness and not the homeowner who had called in Mr. Lechmanski to remove the recoons.
In his comment, Mr. Lechmanski lashed out at the Shelter Island Reporter for publishing the arrest on its website without seeking comment from him first.
“I have been the nuisance animal trapper on this island for the last 30 years with an unblemished record,” he posted on the Reporter website last Thursday. “I am licensed by the DEC and the first person called by the police and others whenever there is an animal problem.
“On the evening of May 6, I had been called to remove a family of raccoons from a house at Hay Beach. Upon arriving, I found the mother and four babies in a chimney. I trapped the mother, went in the chimney and got three of the babies, inadvertently leaving one behind. As I was walking outside with the fourth baby to put it in the car, I accidently dropped it, at which time my dog grabbed the animal in his mouth. By the time I was able to free the raccoon from the dog, the animal was so mangled that I did exactly what I had learned in my DEC training; chest compressions to kill the animal.
“Imagine my surprise when two weeks later I have a visit from the Shelter Island Police who said that there was a complaint and that he was going to write me a ticket about cruelty to animals. I immediately told him the story and offered to go directly to the station house immediately if necessary. Little did I know that I was to be treated like a common criminal, finger-printed, photos taken, and never even told that I was under arrest. And then, to add injury to insult, to find that the Shelter Island Reporter had printed that I was arrested for torturing an animal! This is a defamation of my character and I find it unthinkable that people can just print whatever they want without knowing the facts. The way in which this incident was so blatantly mishandled certainly proves what a good friend of mine has often said, ‘no good deed goes unpunished.'”
“At the very least, I deserve an apology, ” he wrote.
