No Jail Time In Animal Cruelty Case - by Jason Allentoff

The date was Monday, April 7th, 2008. The WOBM Newsroom received a phone call from Barnegat Police Lieutenant Pat Shaffrey that a gruesome discovery had been made at a home on Potomac Court. I promptly left the station heading for the house - not knowing what to expect. At least seven news trucks from New York and Philadelphia TV stations were on the scene when I arrived as a local station's helicopter hovered loudly overhead. It was a story that I followed for five full days and one that came to a conclusion this week in a Toms River Courtroom.

A representative of a bank that had foreclosed on 21 Potomac Court came by to change the locks when he noticed an overpowering stench. No one was home and the property appeared to be abandoned. Garbage bags and old newspapers were stacked up out front. This prompted a call to police leading to the grotesque scene. Row after row of cages with mummified remains of animals - everything from dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, turtles and guinea pigs. In the freezer were the bodies of 28 kittens. At the time, Police Chief Art Drexler said some of the pets were decomposed so much that it was hard to determine an accurate total. The rotting remains were carried out in bags as neighbors looked on with disbelief. A media shanty town was set up outside the house as A-S-P-C-A and Popcorn Park Zoo representatives aided in the cleanup. Because of the feces spread throughout the house and carcasses covered in flies, officers and officials had to wear haz-mat suits. A-S-P-C-A officer Tom Yanisko told me at the scene that he had never seen such horror in his life. Just steps away from the house, he described the inside as a "fly-infested, maggot-infested tomb.''

Eyewitnesses had said the last time they saw anyone enter the home was around Christmas 2007. One woman across the street from the home said even when she did see the husband and wife occupants, they kept mostly to themselves. When all was said and done, about 68 animals were counted. Within 24 hours of the discovery, Matthew and Amanda Teymant were charged with animal cruelty. Matthew worked as a dispatcher for the Toms River Police Department. At the time, Chief Mike Mastronardy told WOBM News that the crime didn't fit Teymant, who also worked as a volunteer with the Toms River First Aid Squad. In addition, Teymant's father is a Toms River police canine officer who trained dogs for agencies throughout the state.

On Monday, Matthew Teymant, now 30, appeared in a Toms River Courtroom where he could have faced jail time for the crime he admitted to back in February. According to published reports, Judge Barbara Villano didn't agree with the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office's plan to get Teymant to serve 364 days in jail because he had no prior criminal record. Instead, Teymant will serve five years' probation and was ordered to perform 250 hours of community service. He has since resigned from the Toms River Police Department. His wife Amanda, now 23, was admitted into a pre-trial intervention program that will drop charges against her within the next 18 months. She must perform about 100 hours of community service. Both are not allowed to go near animals as part of their sentences.

Its a verdict that doesn't sit too well with animal activists. Stuart Chaifetz with the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance says he is totally outraged that the sentence was too lax. He feels jail time was mandatory in this case. Chaifetz says "there should be some accountability - there should be a message sent that you can't do this so that the next person doesn't do this and get away with it." He adds "if so much devastation and death can occur and you can just walk from it, then what's the point in having cruelty laws?" Chaifetz says this was one of the worst cases of animal cruelty he has ever seen.

According to reports, a lawyer for the couple said Matthew Teymant was only trying to care for needy animals, but he and his wife became overwhelmed when they had two children of their own. Chaifetz says "whatever their intentions were - the moment the animals started to die, it went from being a sanctuary to a prison. You have to have some kind of common sense to know how many lives you can take care of in a reasonable manner." They abandoned the house about seven months before the gruesome discovery. Neither Teymant's attorney Bradley Billhimer nor Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Michael Abatemarco have returned phone calls to WOBM News for comment.

by Jason Allentoff
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