A New Jersey man is facing charges that he fatally shot his step-daughter’s French bulldog in the face.
Jeffrey Lentz is accused of gunning down Ruby, a one-year-old pup he and his wife were pet-sitting in October at their Berkeley Township home, after prosecutors claimed he lied — initially claiming the dog had been injured in an animal attack.
Now a growing “Justice for Ruby” movement is demanding answers.
About 50 members of the nascent group — formed on Facebook shortly after Lentz’s Nov. 3 arrest — confronted him in court Jan. 16, as Ocean County prosecutors offered him a deal: plead guilty to weapons possession and animal cruelty, serve five years in state prison with 42 months before parole, and never own another animal again.
Lentz, 56, rejected the deal, and instead filed for a Graves Act waiver — a request by his lawyer to reduce the Garden State’s mandatory minimum gun sentence.
“I wish he had taken the offer so this wouldn’t drag out,” said step-daughter Nicole Guarino.
The case now heads to a grand jury.
The gut-wrenching tragedy began on Oct. 3, when Nicole and her husband, Nick, left the pup with the couple.
“It was the first time we left her there for a sleepover,” Nicole told JerseyOnline.com. “I trusted them. What daughter wouldn’t trust her parents?”
A few hours later, Nick received a shocking phone call from Nicole’s mom — Ruby was dead.
He broke the news to Nicole. “I asked him what happened,” Nicole said in a YouTube interview. “And he said she’d been attacked by a wild animal and they couldn’t save her at the vet.”
Confused, Nicole decided to alert local police, and when she got to her parents’ home accompanied by cops, the couple “turned hostile,” she said.
“They handed Ruby to us in a box and closed the door.”
A vet exam revealed the dog had been shot in the face, with X-rays showing a bullet lodged in her jaw, police said.
Berkeley police launched a month-long investigation.
After Lentz’s arrest, he was sent to the Ocean County Jail but released on Nov. 10.
If convicted on the second-degree weapons charge alone, Lentz faces up to 10 years in prison under the state’s strict Graves Act. He’s also been charged with third-degree animal cruelty and possessing a large-capacity magazine.
Efforts to reach Lentz and his attorney were unsuccessful.