Joseph Brandon

A Butler man was sentenced to prison Thursday for five criminal cases that included animal abuse, threatening to kill a victim and three driving under the influence offenses.

Common Pleas Judge William Shaffer sentenced Joseph R. Brandon, 33, to two and a half to eight years in prison for the offenses.

In the most serious case, Brandon was sentenced for intimidating a witness, a felony, after he pleaded guilty to threatening his ex-girlfriend on April 15, 2019, in an attempt to get her to drop charges against him for brutalizing her dog several months earlier.

For the case related to the dog attack, Brandon pleaded guilty March 13 to aggravated cruelty to animals — torture, a felony.

The other three cases were driving under the influence of a controlled substance, accounting for his second, third and fourth DUI offenses.

For aggravated cruelty to animals, he was sentenced to one to two years in prison and was given 365 days of credit for time already served. The sentence is running simultaneously with all the others.

Shaffer sentenced Brandon to 18 to 72 months in prison to be served separately for intimidating a witness.

Brandon declined to make a statement during his sentencing, but the victim in the most serious cases of animal cruelty and witness intimidation spoke about her experiences dealing with Brandon.

“How do I communicate the death and damage inflicted on me?” said the victim in a statement read by her cousin in court Thursday while she stood nearby.

The victim said she “suffered in silence, agonizing alone over the extensive trauma.”

Brandon's streak of crimes started Nov. 27, 2018, when he was charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance, his second offense of this nature. For this, he was sentenced to one to two years in prison and a $1,500 fine.

On Jan. 14, 2019, Butler city police charged him with his third offense of driving under the influence of a controlled substance, which resulted in a sentence of one to two years in prison and a $2,500 fine.

And a month later on Feb. 24, 2019, he was hit with a fourth offense of the same nature. Under state law, Brandon's fourth DUI was elevated to a felony. For that, he was sentenced to one to two years in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Brandon will serve all three DUI sentences at the same time as the aggravated cruelty to animals sentence. He was credited with 365 days for time already served behind bars.

A day before Brandon's fourth DUI offense, he abused his ex-girlfriend's dog.The woman told police that she had left the dog, Molli, a cross-breed golden retriever and poodle, in Brandon's care that day, according to earlier reports. But when she returned home, she noticed Molli was injured.The dog was bruised and bleeding under the right eye. A veterinarian later examined Molli and found she had several broken ribs, contusions to the lungs and bruises over her entire body.Those injuries, the veterinarian determined, were from being beaten, police said.On Thursday, the victim explained in court that Brandon was pleading guilty to only “a small portion of his abuse.”“For many months, (Brandon) wreaked havoc on my life,” she said.She said their romantic relationship was marked with “abusive, violent tendencies” to the point where she became “a broken shell of my former self.”

On March 15, 2019, police arrested Brandon on a felony charge of aggravated cruelty to an animal. He was arraigned and released on $5,000 unsecured bail to await his preliminary hearing. But days before that hearing, Molli's owner told police that Brandon showed up April 10, 2019, at her Butler home.She said Brandon “attempted to persuade (her) into lying about what happened to her dog,” according to charging documents.The woman refused, police said, and she advised her ex-boyfriend not to contact her again. But days later, the threats began.He threatened to vandalize her vehicle and house. The woman said he also threatened to poison her dogs and kill a family member's pet rabbit.She recounted other threats, police said, that included one in which he threatened to pour gasoline on a family member and light him on fire.According to documents, “Brandon also said (the woman) better be long gone or dead when he gets out of jail or he'll find her and kill her.”In court, she recalled that these events made her feel unsafe to leave her home and he began to threaten her and her family.“It broke me down even further,” she said.Some of those threats were played in court earlier this year from a phone recording between the victim and Brandon.In the conversation, Brandon tells the victim that he's going to murder her the way Melissa Barto was murdered. Barto was shot to death by her boyfriend in June 2017.The victim finished her statement Thursday by addressing Brandon.“I hope (Brandon) learned something,” she said. “I hope we all could find our peace and move forward.”