BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A 52-year-old Bradford County man accused of starving a dog to death asked a judge to assign a new public defender to his case.
James McLoon was one of three men arrested on animal cruelty charges on November 4, 2024.
According to an arrest report, Bradford deputies were called to a mobile home off Southeast 44th Avenue, also known as Steel Mill Road, in the Lincoln City neighborhood after evicted renters refused to leave.
There deputies discovered an emaciated dog, which animal control later put down due to advanced stages of starvation.
A prosecutor said that McLoon was the most culpable for the animal’s death because he previously served prison time for the same charge.
Feces and urine coming out onto the floor
In August 2022, McLoon was sentenced to 22.95 months in prison after pleading to 39 counts of animal cruelty and confinement of animals without sufficient food or water.
According to a Palatka Daily News Report, McLoon was arrested at his Interlachen home after his probation officer visited the house and reported potential animal neglect to the State Attorney’s Office.
When Putnam County Animal Control and Department of Corrections officers served a January 2022 arrest warrant on McLoon and Patricia Desrosiers, 57, they found 29 dogs on the property. Two were chained outside at the front of the home, one unable to stand, and was later euthanized because, according to the sheriff’s office, had a hematoma abdomen which caused its lungs to not function correctly.
Officers found eight more dogs outside, six of which were in cages covered with dog feces and urine. Two others were tied to a tree. One was emaciated and tangled in its restraints, and the other had a small shelter.
“The dogs located in the back bedroom were covered in feces and had no access to clean water,” one deputy reported according to the newspaper. “There were so much feces and urine from the two cages it was coming out onto the floor beside the cages.”
The Palatka Daily News added that in 2019, McLoon surrendered nine dogs to Putnam County Animal Control after being accused of animal neglect.
He don’t want to work with me
During a February 5 hearing, the defendant told Circuit Judge James M. Colaw that his court-appointed attorney, Eddie Edwards, failed to communicate with him or his sister, preventing him from preparing an adequate defense.
“It took my sister three months to get a hold of him,” McLoon told the judge. “And when she did get a hold of him, my sister told me he had an attitude towards her.”
“He don’t want to work with me,” McLoon added. “I just don’t want him to be my attorney. I want to take this to trial. He is not the one I want to (go to) trial with.”
Edwards told Colaw that he has met with the defendant four times since his arrest on animal cruelty charges. The assistant public defender added that he communicated a plea offer the state made to his client and discussed discovery in the case with the defendant.
“As far as it’s hard to communicate with me, Your Honor,” the lawyer continued, “I’m busy, and what I do for everyone is I give their families… the ability to call and make an appointment with my assistant. My assistant knows that when somebody’s family calls and wants to make an appointment, to put it on my calendar, which is what his sister eventually did.”
Edwards explained that the defendant’s sister told him to request a mental health evaluation for her brother.
“At this point in time,” Edwards told the judge, “based on the evaluation in a previous case by a (public defender) that he had in Putnam (County) where he was found competent to stand trial by two different evaluators, and also my obligation not only to this court but to my oath and to the Fourth Bar when it comes to the rules governing a request for competency evaluation, I have declined to do that.”
Offer: 3 years in prison
Assistant State Attorney Ryan King told Colaw that his current offer to resolve both the animal cruelty charge and subsequent drug charges is 36 months in prison followed by 24 months of drug offender probation.
Fending off interruptions by McLoon, Colaw told the defendant that since this is only his second case management hearing before the judge and Edwards has met with him four times, “that’s pretty involved.”
“I don’t know that you would probably get that level of contact with a lot of attorneys in that short period of time,” the judge continued.
Colaw told McLoon he saw no evidence of ineffective representation. He told the defendant he could hire a private attorney or represent himself; otherwise, Edwards would remain on the case.
The defendant responded that his sister would hire private counsel.
