Yesterday in Norfolk Superior Court Andrew Chieu, 64, of Quincy, pleaded guilty to two counts of animal cruelty.
According to court documents, Chieu’s neighbor called the police when she saw him burning a live raccoon over a fire. The neighbor took a video of the incident. Prosecutors claim that
[t]he video showed the defendant stoking a fire in a can with newspapers and placing the trapped raccoon on top of the fire. The defendant removed the raccoon from the fire multiple times so that he could build the fire higher, and then replaced [the raccoon] on top of the flames.
When police arrived Chieu allegedly told them that “there were too many animals in his garden and that he hadn’t done anything wrong.”
The raccoon had burns over 60% of its body and died a couple weeks after the incident.
A judge sentenced Chieu to 6 months in jail.