Pocono News Section

Dog Raid Turns Up Drugs and Weapons

Dog Raid Turns Up Drugs and Weapons - Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 6:20PM EST

Reported by: Jeff Chirico
Thursday, Mar 13, 2008 @06:20pm EST
A New York man is charged with letting more than a dozen caged dogs live in their own feces and urine. He's also facing drugs and weapons charges after what police found in his home. Our Jeff Chirico has much more on this story.

Six handguns, a shot gun and up to a half pound of marijuana. Pocono mountain regional police show off what they recovered from this home in A Pocono Country Place near Tobyhanna. They also found more than a dozen Pit Bulls living in horrendous conditions. Officer Scott Dunlap with the Pocono Mountain Regional Police says "there were 13 dogs in the house, locked in cages, in their own feces and urine covering the floor."

Police say Shawn Corcas of New York owns the house. Police were tipped off while investigating Corcas and another man for allegedly dumping these two malnourished dogs on the side of the road Monday. One of them has bad kennel sores. WBRE News told you about this story on Tuesday. When questioned by police, Corcas admitted he ran a kennel in his home. Dunlap says "we decided if that's the condition these are in, what are the other dogs look like?" A man inside the house told us to come back when the owner was home. A neighbor who didn’t want to be identified said “they're very nice people.” When asked “did you know they had dogs and drugs?” The neighbor replied, “no. I knew they had a couple dogs. I didn't know they had a lot of dogs."

Despite the filth and feces, animal officers say the dogs were well-fed and seemingly well-cared for, so they didn't remove them from the home. Dunlap says “he'll be cited for that today and then he'll have to clean these conditions up and if he doesn't clean these conditions up, we'll continue with this."

Corcas will face drugs and firearms charges. Police say he pleaded guilty to rape and robbery in New York and therefore can't own a gun as a convicted felon.

Corcas is supposed to turn himself in Thursday. Police are also investigating whether these dogs were being used or bred for fighting.