Case Report

Benny Zavala, 35, accused of dissecting his daughter's pet guinea pig because he thought it was a government spy was sentenced Thursday to 50 days in jail.

Zavala was also given three years of probation and ordered to seek psychiatric and drug counseling. With credit for time served, Zavala will not have to return to jail. 

A jury convicted Zavala in 2002 of felony cruelty to animals for starving the animal to death and a misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of methamphetamine. His sentencing was delayed because he filed a motion for a new trial, which eventually was denied. 

Deputy District Attorney Tom Connors said the case was "extremely" unusual. 

"It's not often you have someone this paranoid from using drugs that they think a guinea pig is spying on them for the government," Connors said. 

The paranoia reportedly was a byproduct of Zavala's heavy use of methamphetamine, not mental illness. 

Zavala originally was charged with a second animal cruelty count of intentionally torturing the pet, but jurors acquitted him of that charge because it was already dead when he dissected it and tore apart its head. 

Police arrested Zavala in September 2001 after a neighbor reported him because she said he had hit the guinea pig with a screwdriver and had cut it open and ripped out its teeth.

After he dissected the animal, he called relatives and said, "The good news is guinea bleeds. The bad news is guinea's dead," Connors told jurors during the trial. 

Zavala also told the neighbor he thought the pet's teeth were bar-coded and that there was a camera in the animal's head. A necropsy showed that the guinea pig had died of starvation, not of the blow to its head or the dissection.

References

Ventura County Star