Saxonburg borough manager granted partial expungement in dog shooting case
Criminal charges that were dismissed in the case against Saxonburg borough manager Steven May in the November 2023 shooting of a pet dog with a crossbow in Buffalo Township will be expunged from his record.
At a brief hearing Monday, July 21, Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCune granted a petition to expunge the dismissed charges.
May, 45, of Clinton Township, pleaded guilty in January to a summary charge of damage to real or personal property filed by Buffalo Township police following the Nov. 11, 2023, incident.
He also was charged with a felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals and misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief and tampering with physical evidence, but those charges do not appear on case dockets from district court or Common Pleas Court.
May’s attorney, Phillip DiLucente, filed a petition May 5 to have those charges expunged for employment reasons.
The district attorney’s office filed an objection, saying that, under state law, May is not entitled to expungement of charges dismissed pursuant to a plea agreement.
At Monday’s hearing, assistant district attorney J.P. Kulzer said his office had objected to the petition, but the plea agreement does not address the other charges, which would have been difficult to prove in court.
McCune said expunging the charges is the “right thing to do.”
According to testimony from May’s preliminary hearing in March 2024, the dog’s owner said Bear, an Australian shepherd, and another dog ran off the morning of Nov. 11, 2023, chasing deer.
May called the owner Nov. 14 and said the dog had been hit by a vehicle and was mistaken for a coyote. The owner’s mother then called May and he told her he shot the dog, according to testimony.
A Pennsylvania Game Commission warden who investigated the incident testified that May told him he went hunting after seeing a coyote chasing a doe on his property. He told the warden that he saw a coyote following a doe and took a shot. He then realized he had killed a dog, then disposed of it in a borough dumpster, the warden said.
