A recording was played in court Friday that ran the gamut of curses in the English language, and was peppered with racial epithets and sexualized vulgarity.

Joseph R. Brandon, 32, of Butler was charged with intimidating a witness last year, and on Friday Assistant District Attorney Robert Zanella and Public Defender Maura Palumbi argued over the relevance of a secret phone recording made between the victim and Brandon, the victim's ex-boyfriend. County Judge William Shaffer will make a decision later if the recording should be admitted as evidence in the case.

In the conversation, Brandon tells the victim that he's going to murder her the way her sister, Melissa Barto, was murdered. Barto was shot to death by her boyfriend in June 2017.

However, Palumbi argued the recording does not prove any witness intimidation.

Brandon is being held in Butler County Prison on a $250,000 bond set on April 25, 2019.

At the time of the recording on March 29 to 30, 2019, Brandon was facing a charge of aggravated cruelty to animals — torture. The victim claimed Brandon was threatening her in an effort to get her to drop the charges against him for allegedly brutalizing her dog.

The allegations led to a felony charge of intimidation of a witness or victim and a misdemeanor charge of terroristic threats.

On Friday, the victim testified that Brandon had threatened to douse her nephew in gasoline and light him on fire if the she didn't drop the animal torture case, and didn't return money she owed him.

The victim testified that later that night Brandon called her on his way back from a job in Canonsburg. She said Brandon told her that he was on the way to the victim's sister's trailer home in Lake Arthur Estates to destroy and burn the trailer home down.

The victim said she decided to meet up with her sister, who wasn't staying at the trailer home at the time, and the two started making their way to Lake Arthur to check on the home.

The two pulled into a nearby gas station and devised a plan to call Brandon and record it, so they could get his threats on the record to be used by authorities.

The two recorded conversations by victim's sister, each several minutes long, revolved around the money and Brandon's perceived treatment at the hands of the victim. In the recording, Brandon claims to be sitting in front of the sister's trailer house.

“Your tree's knocked over,” Brandon could be heard saying. “I do (expletive) like this all the time. I'll get even. I'll get back. I don't care.”

Later, Brandon can be heard saying, “I want to forget everything about you. I don't want to ever have the memory of you.”

“You're so angry at the world, at everything,” the witness could be heard saying to Brandon later.

After talk of money and the victim's family, Brandon can be heard saying. “I hope you're dead by the time I get out of jail. I'm going to want to kill you, murder you like your sister.”

“You're going to regret saying this stuff, Joe,” the victim responds.

After the recordings were played, Palumbi argued there is no mention in the recordings about the animal abuse case, and that the arson allegations were made with no other witnesses around. Palumbi suggests the victim made this claim to protect herself “from possibly facing a felony charge.”

Palumbi noted that surreptitiously recording or wiretapping a phone conversation is illegal under state law. One of the few exceptions is if there's a suggestion of “crimes of violence,” such as arson. Otherwise, Palumbi observed, wiretaps without a court order are a felony crime.

On cross examination, the victim noted that aside from a few broken branches, there was no damage done to the home.

In response, Zanella said they are relying on the wiretap being permitted under the crime of violence exception. And he argued there is evidence of a crime of violence in the recording.

“I disagree with defense counsel that there were no direct threats,” Zanella said. “He threatened to take her body to Lawrence County.”

Along with the animal abuse and witnesses intimidation cases, Brandon also has three active cases related to drug use and driving under the influence.