“Justice for Penny!” screams the NY Post. “The Upper West Side owner of a air of killer pit bulls involved in four grisly attacks is finally behind bars.” (NY Post, Justice for Penny! NYC Dog Owner Finally Behind Bars for Failing to Turn Over Pit Bulls Involved in Attacks, Noah Augustin, 12/13/2025.)
The owner of the pit bulls was Joseph Columbus.
This bad penny’s vicious dogs nearly killed Penny the Chihuahua in early May of 2025. The incident was captured on video. Watch it on Elizabeth Vargas’ show on NewsNation. She interviewed me for several minutes in that segment about why the legal system wasn’t moving fast enough.
I also talked about the case with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation. He correctly pointed out that there was an existing court order to surrender the pit bulls. Penny’s owner, Lauren Claus, also was on the show and said it was unbelievable that the dogs were still with their owner, weeks later. I spoke about the NY laws that clearly required the police and the court to take action right away.
Well, they got it done before the year ended.
Joseph Columbus was finally arrested and Judge Phaedra Perry-Bond has sent him to jail until possibly March 2026 for flouting her order to give up the dogs.
But why did it take so long?
Law enforcement and the courts need to understand the dangers posed by dogs like these pit bulls. Dog-on-dog attacks must be taken far more seriously because so many people are injured while trying to get their pet out of harm’s way, break up the fight, or pull the dogs apart. It’s a natural human response to intervene, and it frequently results in the owner of the victim dog getting bitten or mauled.
I estimate that one-third of the nearly 1,000 dog attack cases I have handled involved bite wounds to dog owners under those circumstances. (Kenneth M. Phillips, A Propensity to Attack Other Dogs Means a Dog Is Dangerous to People.)
The justice system has to move much faster when killers roam the streets — killer dogs as well as killer people. I have several common sense proposals to protect our communities from dangerous dogs and irresponsible dog owners. To learn what they are, check out Penny’s Pit Bull Attack: A Wake-Up Call About Dangerous Dogs.