From Staff Reports

SILISKI

Williamson County Sheriff’s deputies on Tuesday executed a civil judgment against convicted animal abuser Jennifer Siliski in a case brought by a New York woman who alleges she was sold a “defective” dog.

Siliski was convicted on Aug. 27 on 11 of 30 counts of animal cruelty stemming from a Jan. 22 raid on her home in Franklin’s Oakwood Estates subdivision. On Tuesday, sheriff’s deputies accompanied a white moving van to the house where a computer, an air hockey game, some animal cages and other items were removed to settle the more than $4,000 judgment awarded to Maureen McSweeney in 2002, a New Yorker who bought the dog in question.

That decision was made in 2002 when a judge ruled in McSweeney’s favor. According to prosecuting attorney Gerard Stranch, a lawyer at the Branstetter, Kilgore, Stranch and Jennings firm in Nashville, the only question his client had was how to collect the more than $4,000 owed to her for vet bills.

“My client, Maureen McSweeney, got a judgment in New York but could not collect because Siliski has no property there,” said Gerard Stranch, a lawyer at the Branstetter, Kilgore, Stranch and Jennings firm in Nashville, in a hearing earlier this year. “We domesticated it here, and my client is entitled to collect the damages now.”

In criminal court, Siliski, faced 30 counts of animal cruelty — 14 counts for neglect, 14 counts for torture and two counts for abandonment. The charges on which she was found guilty each carry a fine of $2,500. The maximum jail time to which Siliski could be sentenced is 11 months, 29 days on each count.

Her sentencing hearing will be Sept. 13, with Circuit Judge R.E. Lee Davies presiding. The judge asked both the defense and prosecution to submit a brief or pleading on the disposition of the animals, any restitution the state may seek and ideas about incarceration, probation or alternative sentencing.

More...Hollybelle Maltese Scandal