Former animal warden not guilty

The city’s former animal control warden, Michael Fritze, who was arrested in April and charged with animal cruelty after prosecutors claimed he abandoned an injured cat at the Freeport Animal Shelter, was found not guilty of misdemeanor charges on Monday in Nassau County District Court.

Fritze had been charged with animal cruelty, animal abandonment, failure to provide proper food and drink to an impounded animal and official misconduct, and faced up to a year in prison. His attorney, Jeff Groder, said that the unanimous verdict proved that the charges against Fritze were baseless.

“He didn’t commit a crime, and in my opinion, this case should have never been brought to trial,” Groder said. “This case was a disgrace from beginning to end.”

The arrest came after the shelter’s former director, Stephanie Cieslik, filed a complaint with the Nassau County district attorney’s office when employees discovered a severely injured cat in a bathroom while cleaning the facility on Feb. 15. The cat’s injuries led shelter staff to believe it had been struck by a car.

Because the city no longer has its own shelter, it contracts with the shelter to take in all stray, abandoned or injured animals found in Long Beach.

Fritze, who had been the animal control officer for just five months at the time but had worked for the city since 2006, brought the injured cat, which was later euthanized, to the shelter after regular business hours on Feb. 14.

“He responded to a 911 call for an injured cat in Long Beach,” Groder said, insisting that his client did nothing wrong. “He did what he was told to do and brought it to the shelter.”

Cieslik claimed that Fritze left a message on the shelter’s general voice mail about the cat and then left it at the shelter at 11 p.m.

Fritze, who has since been removed as animal control warden and now works for the Police Department, could not be reached for comment. In an interview with the Herald in April, Cieslik said that the city has full access to the shelter, and when an injured animal is brought in during off hours, she is to be contacted directly, which she said Fritze failed to do.

District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced the creation of an animal cruelty unit shortly after the complaint was filed and launched an investigation into the incident. On April 9, Fritze surrendered to investigators in the D.A.’s office and was arrested.

The charges against Fritze reverberated throughout city government. At one point, they led to a contentious back-and-forth between City Manager Charles Theofan and Rice, after Theofan wrote a letter to Rice questioning the arrest, calling it a “terrible mistake.” Rice responded that her job was to determine whether a crime had been committed.

Theofan declined to comment on the verdict.

After the incident, some people questioned Fritze’s training for his job. Cieslik said she did not believe he was properly trained, although she added that he was well aware of the proper procedure for handling animals after hours and had followed it on previous occasions. Cieslik, who testified against Fritze but no longer works for the shelter, could not be reached for comment. Calls to the shelter were not returned.

In an interview with the Herald in April, Civil Service Employees Association President John Mooney said that Fritze was hired instead of someone more qualified who was on an active Civil Service list, and that Fritze was not properly trained for the position. Mooney did not return calls seeking comment.

“I think it’s a clear example that if we’re going to put employees out there, they should have the proper training,” City Councilman Mike Fagen said of the verdict. “I’m pleased that one of our employees was not prosecuted, but this wasn’t fair to the officer to put him in that spot. As far as I’m concerned, though, [the verdict] is good for the city — you don’t want anybody who works for the city to be in that position.”

Fritze’s arrest came shortly after Rice’s office announced an investigation into possible criminal activity by members of the Long Beach Civil Service Commission. Rice launched the probe after the state Civil Service Commission released a scathing report in March that concluded that Long Beach had failed to comply with Civil Service laws and regulations for years.

Groder said he believed there were political “undercurrents” to Rice’s investigation and prosecution of Fritze, but he did not elaborate.

A spokesman for Rice’s office would not comment on the verdict or on Groder’s allegations. But one person with knowledge of the case called the accusations “completely outrageous.”

Groder said that the charge of official misconduct was dismissed months before the trial, and he described the verdicts on the three remaining charges as “vindication” for his client.

“Originally, they alleged that [Fritze] had not provided the cat with food and water,” Groder said. “But a judge pared that charge down, saying that because the cat was injured, he could not eat or drink. My argument on the summation was there really is no case.”

Groder added that Fritze is now trying to move on and focus on his career. “If the verdict had gone the other way, it had the potential to hurt his career,” he said. “He has career aspirations that a criminal conviction would have prohibited him from pursuing.”

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