‘You deserve to be in jail’: Suspect charged with starving dogs

A concerned person called the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office to report Joseph Farkas over the treatment of his dogs, which alerted deputies to the “disturbing” scene. There, police said they found two emaciated dogs that were in a state of paralysis over their starvation, with one dog, Katy, suffering urine scalding from sitting in puddles of her own urine, according to Sheriff Wayne Ivey. The other dog, Darcy, was suffering hypovolemic shock.

Both dogs were also severely ungroomed, with their nails overgrown to an extreme length and underweight. Katy weighed 38.4 pounds, when a healthy weight should have been 50 pounds, and Darcy weighed 31.6 pounds, when she should have weighed 45.

“You deserve to be under the jail, but since the law only allows me to put you in it, that’ll have to do,” Ivey said in a press conference Thursday.

There was an unopened bag of dog food within the view of both animals at the scene.

“What kind of sick, demented, and cruel person does this to a helpless animal?” Ivey said.

When deputies arrived to arrest Farkas, he refused to answer the door and attempted to take his own life by drinking detergent. Ivey suggested he did this “to avoid going to jail because you knew you would need medical attention.” After Farkas received medical attention, he was taken directly to jail.

Farkas was charged with two felony counts of animal cruelty and two counts of unlawful confinement. His bond was set at $11,000.