Tampabay: Llama abuser sent to prison

TAMPA -- A Hillsborough judge sentenced Brandon Eldred this week to three years in prison for violating the probation received for attacking two bulls in Odessa with a hunting bow and razor-tipped arrows.

Last month, a Pinellas-Pasco Circuit judge imposed a three-year sentence on the 18-year-old for beating two pet llamas in East Lake with a golf club and hacking a third in the face with a titanium meat cleaver.

Eldred will serve Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta's sentence, handed down Tuesday, concurrently with the Pinellas terms for the llama attacks.

Eldred got a break from Ficarrotta in January when the judge sentenced the 18-year-old to one year of house arrest followed by probation for the bull attacks. In March, Eldred violated the terms of that sentence after he was accused of drinking, drag racing and missing counseling appointments, according to court records.

Eldred's co-defendant, Robert "Bobby" Pettyjohn, received three years in prison for the attack on the bulls. In April, Pettyjohn agreed to serve five additional years for the charges in Pinellas. Pettyjohn's eight years in state prison will be followed by five years of probation.

Prosecutors have called this animal abuse case the worst in recent memory. In addition to attacking the bulls, both defendants were charged with sodomizing and killing a nursing mother llama and permanently disfiguring a baby llama during an early morning attack in February 2001.

Eldred and his attorney haved blamed Pettyjohn for the attacks and for supplying Eldred with the drugs that both teenagers used while brutalizing the llamas.

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