An animal shelter worker from Lindenhurst who has been accused of dumping a dog in a dumpster is also suspected of abandoning another dog on a street last week, authorities said.
Michael Papini was released Sunday on $250 bail after being charged over the weekend with abandonment, petit larceny, criminal impersonation and cruelty to animals, court records show. He is due back in court Tuesday.
The Suffolk County SPCA said the 30-year-old kennel attendant for the Town of Islip Animal Shelter dumped a dog in a dumpster at a gas station in West Islip. Papini was arrested after the agency released details of the case last week.
Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County SPCA, said his detectives are now looking for Bailey, a 5-year-old male cream-colored miniature Poodle that Papini allegedly dumped from a vehicle on Cooper Street in Babylon at 7 a.m. Dec. 23.
A $500 reward is being offered for information on the whereabouts of the second dog. Anyone with information can contact the Suffolk County SPCA at 631-382-7722. All calls will be kept confidential.
Those two cases come as the Nassau County SPCA is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for abandoning more than two dozen baby chicks in a box outside Petland Discounts on Fulton Avenue in Hempstead on Friday.
Anyone with information in that case, which is being investigated as animal cruelty, is asked to call the Nassau County SPCA at 516-THE-SPCA or email
crueltystoppers@ncspca.us All calls will be kept confidential!
