A judge has dismissed felony animal cruelty charges filed against a Pennsylvania police officer who allegedly ran over a loose horse multiple times with his patrol car and pinned it to the sidewalk, euthanizing it.
The ruling came Tuesday after Chester County District Attorney Chris de Barena Sarove notified the judge that Corporal Michael Perillo’s lawyers intend to argue at trial that the horse had to be run over to prevent a serious accident. “I believe the necessity defense is valid and will be successful at trial,” Barena Sarove said, noting that the law requires people to value human life over that of animals.
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Perillo was suspended without pay after being charged by the State Police Internal Investigations Unit in July 2022. He had been charged with two felony counts of animal cruelty and one misdemeanor count of animal cruelty stemming from a December 2021 incident involving a horse on a highway in Chester County west of Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania State Police vehicle. (Pennsylvania State Police)
Authorities say the horse was on the shoulder of a road in Lower Oxford Township and had already been hit by a car before officers were dispatched. Perillo drove his car over the horse multiple times, causing it to fall and then pinning it on the road before another officer euthanized it.
Perillo joined the State Police in September 2006 and was assigned to Troop J in Avondale. He is out on bail while awaiting trial.
Attorney Williams Davis told the Westchester Daily Local News that the decision to seek dismissal of the case was the right one and expressed gratitude to the district attorney for seeking the dismissal.
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“We’ve always felt that this was an unjust prosecution,” Davis said. “If my client hadn’t taken action, the situation could have been fatal. He was trying to protect the other driver.”
