Police: New Jersey man beat dog to death, claimed it fell

Police have charged a Jersey Shore resident with beating a defenseless dog to death.

Nicholas Piccolino, 33, of Seaside Heights, is charged with killing a 10-year-old female Bichon Frise dog named Booshu.

Booshu’s owner told the NJSPCA and police on Aug 19 that Piccolino had killed Booshu.

While Piccolino was allegedly in the kitchen with the dog, a resident upstairs heard “several loud banging sounds and a dog yelping in the kitchen below,” the Ocean County Prosecutor’s office said in a press release.

Shortly thereafter, Piccolino contacted Booshu’s owner to tell them that “something was wrong with her dog,” prosecutors said.

“Booshu’s owner found the dog dead on the floor of the bathroom,” prosecutors said in a press release. “Piccolino claimed that Booshu ‘dirtied’ herself in her crate and that while he was cleaning her up, he dropped her.”

However, a necropsy found that the cause of death was “multiple blunt force injuries to her head and body,” according to prosecutors.

Piccolino was arrested Tuesday and hit with third-degree charges tormenting, torturing or beating a living animal to death.

Bail was set at $35,000 and he is being held in Ocean County jail, prosecutors said.