Ex-employees describe problems at Aiken dog shelter

Kristen Carvajal wasn’t surprised when she heard about the charges filed against her former boss and fellow employee at an Aiken County animal shelter.

“I’m surprised, mostly, that it took so long for anything to happen,” she said.

Carvajal worked from the summer of 2017 until January 2018 at the Home for Good Dog Rescue Inc.’s Aiken location. New Jersey’s attorney general and the acting prosecutor in Union County, N.J., announced charges in December against owner Toni A. Turco and an employee, Richard Errico. The animal shelter is based in Berkeley Heights, N.J.

Turco, 55, is charged with 15 counts of fourth-degree falsifying records for the purposes of deceiving prospective pet owners, two counts of fourth-degree knowingly selling and/or exposing to human contact a pet with a contagious or infectious disease, and one count of third-degree coercion by threatening to harm an employee’s reputation or livelihood.

Errico, 65, is charged with one count of fourth-degree false advertising for the purpose of deceiving prospective pet owners. According to arrest warrants obtained by The Augusta Chronicle, Errico was involved in sharing an ad that contained false information about a dog to deceive prospective dog owners.

Carvajal said she worked as a kennel technician at the Whiskey Road shelter and was hired by Turco. During her time there, she provided basic care to the animals, and she started to realize something was wrong.

“I just felt we weren’t handling it the way we were supposed to. People were not wearing gloves; dogs were being mixed with healthy and unhealthy (dogs),” she said. “It just started becoming a problem when (parvovirus) would put up.”

According to PetMD, parvovirus is a highly contagious viral illness that affects dogs. It can cause severe, bloody diarrhea; lethargy; fever; vomiting; and severe weight loss.

The warrants against Turco state that she knowingly sold, offered to sell, exposed, allowed a dog to be sold or offered a dog for sale in 2019 that had parvovirus.

Carvajal said workers were not properly trained or prepared to take care of the animals. There were instances, she said, where employees had to look up videos on YouTube to administer medicine.

The warrants state that Turco falsified or concealed intake forms or veterinarian records on at least 14 dogs in 2016, ran an ad containing false information about another dog in 2018, and threatened to fire and harm employees’ reputations and personal relationships if they didn’t lie on the forms in 2016.

Carvajal said employees didn’t know much about the paperwork because they didn’t handle it directly, and were scared to raise concerns because they would usually get yelled at and threatened with being fired or having their hours reduced.

“In my position, we were considered the peons. We didn’t really have much to do with the paperwork. Any time any of us would see something we didn’t agree with, we were kind of scared to say anything, especially to our (veterinarian technician),” she said.

A veterinarian technician assists veterinarians in diagnosing and treating animals and requires specific training and license. Former employee Kiersten Ranly said the veterinarian technician, who was not named in the warrants, never showed them what to do.

“We weren’t really trained adequately,” Ranly said.

Ranly, who worked at the Aiken location until January 2018, said a “quarantine room” for dogs was usually used for puppies or young dogs. Like Carvajal, she said she wasn’t surprised when she heard about the charges.

Another disease that popped up when Carvajal was at the shelter was distemper, a virus that affects a dog’s respiratory, gastrointestinal and central nervous system and can be passed from dog to dog through direct contact with fresh urine, blood or saliva.

Carvajal said dogs came in with distemper and were sent out for adoption without being properly treated. Ranly said a dog was adopted during the outbreak and later died.

“If they are all in the same room, just because they are in separate cages doesn’t mean they are not going to catch the disease,” Carvajal said.

Carvajal said she raised concerns with the shelter’s veterinarian technician but that nothing was done.

Carvajal said she probably saw Turco three times during her short time at the shelter, but the owner never mingled with the rescue dogs and stayed at a house on the property on Whiskey Road. Ramly said Turco came down a couple of times during her time there, but she doesn’t remember seeing her during the distemper outbreak.

Carvajal believes she was let go after raising concerns about the treatment of the animals to the South Carolina Department of Agriculture. She is not sure whether she wants the shelter closed, but she hopes someone will buy it and take proper care of the animals.

“It’s almost like these dogs were being sent to a death sentence going to this rescue,” she said.

The Augusta Chronicle reached out to Home for Good Dog Rescue, but a receptionist at the New Jersey headquarters said they had no comment.

Turco and Errico were scheduled to make their first appearances in court Jan. 3, but it was waived, according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office. Their next court appearance is scheduled Feb. 12 in Superior Court in Elizabeth, N.J.