Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Aquarium attack case ends in plea deal

A man charged with dumping chlorine in an exotic aquarium store's tank in a disputed purchase exchange pleads no contest.

By RICHARD DANIELSON
Published July 21, 2005

What started as perhaps Pinellas County's first-ever animal cruelty case involving invertebrates has ended in a plea deal.

Jeremey Armstrong, 28, of Palm Harbor, was charged in June 2004 with dumping powdered chlorine into a 600-gallon saltwater fish tank at the Exotic Aquatics Aquarium Superstore in the Countryside area of Clearwater.

The chemical killed an estimated 3,000 sea creatures, including hard and soft corals, starfish, clams, snails, hermit and horseshoe crabs, store employees said.

Pinellas County sheriff's deputies charged Armstrong with cruelty to animals, a felony. Last week, he pleaded no contest to the lesser charge of misdemeanor criminal mischief, according to court records. He was sentenced to the 12 days he already had served in jail, ordered to pay $300 in fines and costs, plus $4,000 restitution to store owner Ron Greenblatt. He also was ordered to stay away from the store.

"That was what we agreed to," Greenblatt said. "I basically said, if he pays for what he did, he's square with me and the state can do what they want with him."

Armstrong did not respond to a written interview request a Times reporter left at his home Wednesday.

Before his arrest, Armstrong had paid $70 for a blue spotted grouper, store employees said. He then returned and asked to trade his fish for another, prettier example of the same species he had seen in the store. When they told him no, too much time had passed since his original purchase, he told them they didn't want to upset him and it was in both sides' best interest to work things out.

Armstrong returned on June 1, 2004, paused in front of the saltwater fish tank and dumped the chlorine into the filtration system when employees weren't looking, authorities said. The sea life destroyed included pieces of exotic coral costing up to $100 each and clams measuring up to a foot wide and costing $100 and up.

It took 75 days to restore the delicate biology of the tank, said Steve Belliveau, store customer service representative.

Statistics on such incidents are hard to come by, but they don't happen often.

After asking around the Sheriff's Office, spokesman Mac McMullen said the only similar incident anyone recalled took place June 27. That's when someone poured gasoline into an artificial pond in unincorporated Largo, killing 13 Asian shubunkin fish valued at $250 each. That case is classified as a felony criminal mischief and remains open.

Greenblatt, 53, and a veteran of the exotic fish business, suggested that what happened at his store defies reasonable explanation.

"America in the year 2005," he said. "What can I say?"

Times photographer Douglas R. Clifford and researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 21, 2005, 00:56:18]