Shelter operator charged for keeping dogs from owner

An Oceanside animal-shelter operator is facing a felony theft charge for refusing to return two lost dogs to their owner because she considered them neglected.

Nassau cops arrested Diane Indelicato, 46, of Ruff House animal shelter on Long Beach Road, after she first claimed the 3-year-old maltipoo (a Maltese-miniature poodle hybrid) and 4-year-old shih tzu had escaped and then sent the dogs to a foster home in New Jersey, police said Friday.

"Perhaps her heart might have been in the right place - she was concerned about the welfare of these dogs - she went about it the wrong way. She went about it illegally," police spokesman Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone said.

"It wasn't for monetary gain. She is basically a zealot. She is an animal enthusiast," Repalone added.

Indelicato said Friday that when she got the lost dogs, they were "infested with fleas" and "didn't have full mobility of moving their legs or their head because they were so severely matted."

"Would you give them back to somebody, you know?" she said.

The dogs first came to Indelicato last weekend when an acquaintance told her he'd found two small dogs Sept. 17 wandering on Atlantic Avenue in Baldwin without collars or identification, Repalone said.

That man had called the First Precinct, which recorded the discovery in its "dog book."

He later gave the dogs to Indelicato for grooming, Repalone said.

The next day, the dogs' owner called the First Precinct about her missing dogs and officers put her in touch with the man who'd found them, police said.

The owner's stepfather went to Indelicato's shelter but said Indelicato told him the dogs had escaped, police said.

But while the stepfather was still at Ruff House, police said, one of the dogs came up to him. According to police, Indelicato ordered him to leave.

"She did not want to relinquish those dogs," Repalone said.

Shortly thereafter, Indelicato had the dogs picked up and taken to New Jersey.

The police intervened and Indelicato told cops where she'd sent the dogs, and the dogs were in the process of being returned to their owner as of Friday, Repalone said.

Repalone said Indelicato's accusation against the owner was being referred to the Nassau County district attorney's animal cruelty unit. Investigators there will look into whether the dogs were being abused, neglected or both.

The owner, identified by police as a 26-year-old woman from Baldwin, could not be reached for comment.

Indelicato, who's due in court to answer her appearance ticket next month, said she hopes the judge will see her side. She said she never expected to be in handcuffs for what she views as a good deed.

"I just think that's the way things go for the underdog, pardon the pun," she said.