VENTURA, Calif. -- The father who dissected his daughter's guinea pig because he thought it was a government spy was sentenced to 50 days in jail -- time he's already served.
Benny Zavala, 35, of Oxnard was also placed Thursday on three years' probation and ordered to seek psychiatric and drug counseling.
Jurors convicted Zavala of felony cruelty to animals for starving the animal to death and misdemeanor being under the influence of methamphetamine.
"It's not often you have someone this paranoid from using drugs that they think a guinea pig is spying on them for the government," Deputy District Attorney Tom Connors said. The paranoia was apparently a byproduct of Zavala's methamphetamine use, not mental illness.
Police arrested Zavala in September 2001 after a neighbor reported he had hit the guinea pig with a screwdriver and had cut it open and ripped out its teeth.
After dissecting the animal, he called relatives and said, "The good news is guinea bleeds. The bad news is guinea's dead," Connors told jurors during the trial.
Zavala told the neighbor he thought the pet's teeth were bar-coded and that there was a camera in the animal's head.
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2375910/detail.html
Benny Zavala, 35, of Oxnard was also placed Thursday on three years' probation and ordered to seek psychiatric and drug counseling.
Jurors convicted Zavala of felony cruelty to animals for starving the animal to death and misdemeanor being under the influence of methamphetamine.
"It's not often you have someone this paranoid from using drugs that they think a guinea pig is spying on them for the government," Deputy District Attorney Tom Connors said. The paranoia was apparently a byproduct of Zavala's methamphetamine use, not mental illness.
Police arrested Zavala in September 2001 after a neighbor reported he had hit the guinea pig with a screwdriver and had cut it open and ripped out its teeth.
After dissecting the animal, he called relatives and said, "The good news is guinea bleeds. The bad news is guinea's dead," Connors told jurors during the trial.
Zavala told the neighbor he thought the pet's teeth were bar-coded and that there was a camera in the animal's head.
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2375910/detail.html
