![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/GDOWIK-KEVIN-JAMES.jpg\" "\\"GDOWIK,")
<\/a>Kevin James Gdowik of 2808 West 23rd Street in Lehigh Acres was arrested this morning in connection with the starvation of two pet dogs left in his care on two counts each of\u00a0cruelty and unlawful confinement to animals.<\/p>\n
The investigation began when Lee County Domestic Animal Services received multiple complaints\u00a0in late January of 2012.\u00a0 As a result, an officer responded to Gdowik’s home and inpsected three dogs.\u00a0 Two were identified as belonging to\u00a0Gdowik, the third a friend’s.\u00a0 His\u00a0two dogs were healthy and clean, whereas the third, named Oreo,\u00a0was emaciated, had a skin condition over 50% of its body, was covered in fleas and had an oozing, quarter-sized wound on its right leg.\u00a0 Oreo was taken by the officer to get treated by a licensed vetrinarian.\u00a0 Gdowik was issued 7 citations for various violations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Further inquiry by the officer revealed Gdowik had agreed to care for Oreo and a second dog named Hershey after the friend had moved out.\u00a0 The pets had been living alone with him\u00a0for several months.\u00a0 Hershey had reportedly died.<\/p>\n
Due to the circumstances, Lee County Domestic Animal Services notified the Lee County Sheriff’s Office and a detective was assigned to conduct a criminal investigation beginning in February.\u00a0\u00a0As the case moved forward, on March 8, 2012, the remains of Hershey were recovered from an empty lot next to Gdowik’s residence,\u00a0where the dog had been buried.\u00a0 Statements from witnesses and a vetrinary pathologist confirmed both dogs had been starved and abandoned.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The case clearly showed\u00a0Gdowik had provided necessary care to his own animals, but did not feed or provide sufficient exercise and required\u00a0care for\u00a0Oreo and Hershey.\u00a0 The starvation and associated health problems resulting in death to Hershey, and pain and suffering to Oreo, were consistent with criminal acts under Florida law.<\/p>\n
Gdowik is currently in the Lee County Jail pending first appearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kevin James Gdowik of 2808 West 23rd Street in Lehigh Acres was arrested this morning in connection with the starvation of two pet dogs left in his care on two… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}