Mother, daughter charged with animal abuse

Hempstead Town officials rescued more than a dozen filthy, emaciated dogs and cats Friday from a Rockville Centre home described as a horrendous scene, with dead animals, trash and animal waste 2 feet deep.

It was the second time in three days that mistreated pets had to be removed from a Rockville Centre house.

The renters of the house, Faith Ross, 54, and her daughter, Francesca-Marie Maselli, 23, said nothing at their arraignment yesterday in Nassau County First District Court in Hempstead, where they were each charged with three felony counts of animal cruelty and 15 related misdemeanor counts.

The felony counts result from the deaths of two dogs that were muzzled and left in cages to die and the injury of a third dog. They were each ordered held on $95,000 cash or $190,000 bond.

Their attorney, Martha Leventhal, of Legal Aid, asked that they be released without bail, saying Ross works as a secretary for an alarm company and Maselli is a nursing home aide.

Town officials said they rescued 14 dogs and two cats from the home at 14 Montauk Ave. and also found the badly decomposed carcasses of 26 animals, including dogs, cats, ferrets and parrots.

Officials said this case was far worse than the discovery Wednesday of 22 animals, 17 of them "severely neglected," in a home at 83 Clinton Ave. In that case, authorities shuttered the home and took the resident, a woman, 62, who they said was disoriented, to a hospital for evaluation.

"They were living at a doggy day spa compared with what we saw yesterday," Town Supervisor Kate Murray said at a news conference yesterday.

The rescued dogs included six Chihuahuas, three dachshunds, a Yorkshire terrier, an English bulldog, a shih tzu and a boxer. A collie mix was taken to an animal hospital for emergency care.

Police officers were called to the scene about 3:15 p.m. Friday by the town building department, which was investigating a foul odor coming from the home, said spokesman Jeff Kluewer of the Rockville Centre police.

"It was just a mess," he said. "You don't understand how people can be living in there."

Landlord Benjamin Corso, 77, who lives nearby, said the women had rented the house for about 17 years and he saw nothing amiss when he was last inside it six months ago. "I saw one dog," he said.

Neighbor Susan Jacobs wondered if they wanted to give animals a good home but got overwhelmed. "I'm very surprised at this," she said.

With Keith Herbert