Guilty plea, probation in Argyle dog deaths

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

Anastasia Palulis, co-owner of Anastasia’s Acres dog boarding in Argyle, was sentenced to two years probation Wednesday, May 27, after pleading guilty in Argyle Town Court to misdemeanors in the deaths of 21 dogs left overnight at the facility with no water or ventilation in August 2025.

Magistrate Stacy Davis pronounced the sentence.

Standing before her, Mrs. Palulis said, “I was solely responsible for the housing and day to day care of dogs at the facility. They were my responsibility, and for that I will be forever sorry.”

Prosecutors deemed it an accident caused by forgetting to turn on the air conditioning.

The misdemeanors were Overdriving, Torturing, and Injuring Animals; Failure to Provide Proper Sustenance.

Mrs. Palulis’s property will be monitored by dog control officers during the probation period, the magistrate told The Chronicle. Additionally, Mrs. Palulis has to pay restitution to victims who submitted restitution requests for adoption fees of their dog, which her business insurance, Travelers Insurance, has agreed to cover.

Defense attorney Bill White said before his client spoke that she “understands and speaks English fairly well, but not perfectly; she’s Russian….

“She’s reluctant to open up and speak freely” but “she has always wanted to say something at the right time.”

Mr. White said after she spoke, “She said she is forever sorry. She takes full responsibility. She always has.”

“It’s a tragedy that occurred, and it can’t be undone,” he said. “She went into this business because she loves dogs. Obviously things happen, mistakes were perhaps made.”

Mr. White said Mrs. Palulis and Robert Palulis “really are sympathetic to what happened.”

“They have reached out to local, state, and federal experts about what to do so this doesn’t happen again somewhere else,” he said.

The prosecution did not proceed with charges against Mr. Palulis because Mrs. Palulis was the one “responsible for taking care of the dogs that night,” prosecuting attorney Taylor Fitzsimmons told The Chronicle.

“Mrs. Palulis took full responsibility for what happened and was sentenced accordingly,” he said.

“The probation sentence will make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

The Chronicle talked outside the courthouse after the ruling with some owners of dogs that died who were distraught.

“I’m just so upset,” said Hudson Falls resident Leah Brown, whose silver lab Rex died. “I can’t even think right now.”

“Two years probation is nothing,” she said. As for the restitution, “I don’t care about the money. I don’t want the money.”

Sherri Lochner of Granville, whose 1-year-old rescue, a mix named Daisy, also died, said, “I don’t feel that justice was given to the 22 dogs” (including the one surviving dog that required emergency medical treatment).

“She should not be allowed to operate a boarding facility moving forward,” Ms. Lochner said. “She knows better than to put them in that size of a kennel. She was greedy and stacked too many dogs into the size of a kennel.”

Danielle Barber, who lived in Glens Falls at the time of the incident but has since moved to South Carolina, had two dogs, Luna and Odin, die at Anastasia’s Acres. She heard of the verdict from her aunt, who attended the sentencing.

Ms. Barber messaged The Chronicle, “I feel like Anastasia still being able to open and run a business is a complete slap in the face to the victims. We have been nothing but calm and respectful through this entire process. Justice was not served at all.”

But the Palusises also had supporters outside the courthouse. They briefly congregated, exchanging hugs.

One supporter from Greenwich who requested anonymity told The Chronicle she had a dog at Anastasia’s Acres for two years, and the dog “never gave indication she felt uncomfortable.”

“To me, they are a life saver,” she said of the Palulises. “I know for a fact they were extremely devastated by what happened. There was no malicious intent or purposeful neglect. S*** happens. This could happen to anybody.”

D.A. Jordan: No evidence of criminal conduct in dog death case

By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor

Washington County District Attorney Tony Jordan told The Chronicle Monday that Anastasia Palulis’s misdemeanor guilty plea in the case of 21 dog deaths at her Anastasia’s Acres boarding facility in Argyle was the proper and only appropriate outcome under the law.

“My read of all of the evidence in this case, and the laws, that there was no evidence of criminal conduct by them,” he said. “They certainly didn’t do something purposefully. They didn’t perceive a risk and willfully ignore it.

“They forgot to do something, and a tragedy occurred. Under Ag & Markets law, they are liable, criminally, for the misdemeanor, because the way the Ag & Markets law is written for the misdemeanor, is, basically, if you take on a responsibility, you have an obligation to perform. And they took on that obligation, and they failed to.”

He said it’s “basically a strict liability statute.”

But the D.A. said, “Forgetting to turn on the air conditioner, that’s a mistake or an accident. That’s not criminal conduct in that regard.”

Mr. Jordan noted that the Palulises were charged under the same New York law as “the person that will chain their girlfriend’s dog outside with no food, no water, and leave them out there for a week in August or January because the girlfriend left them to go on a trip and he didn’t want her to. “

He said that action “is far more egregious” than what occurred in Argyle.

The D.A. refers to both Anastasia and Robert Palulis as owners of the facility.

“They were both charged. You know, it’s at their house. I don’t know what the corporate structure was if there was, but her plea allocution took full responsibility.”

Mr. Jordan said that “the conduct that could be charged under Ag & Markets law was the failure to turn on the air conditioning unit, and she took sole responsibility for that. So once she did that, there is no evidence of him having committed the Ag & Markets crime.”

Mr. Jordan said while some of the dog owners expressed anger at the Palulises, others were sympathetic.

“Early on we invited all of the victims and their families to come in. And I think at the first meeting, especially, they were all here because our grand jury room was full. We had to bring in more chairs, so we had over 23 people in there.

“An older couple expressed it this way — and well over half of the people nodded in agreement — and he said it way better than I can repeat it, but basically it was, ‘I’m so conflicted, and I don’t know how to feel. I am so angry at them that this happened. But I feel just so horrible for them, because I know how much they loved our dog and loved what they did.’”

Asked if justice was served, Mr. Jordan replied, “Under the law, as it exists in New York? Yes. She pled guilty, it’s a criminal conviction. She said, ‘I unjustifiably killed an animal.’ When someone pleads guilty to that, that is a significant acknowledgement. But as we told the victims from the outset there’s nothing that’s gonna happen in this case that’s gonna replace the sadness or their loss.”

The dogs died from heat and lack of water, but the D.A. says perhaps not horribly. He said one of the dog owners “asked me if the deputies or investigators manipulated the animals [bodies]. And I said, absolutely not. I mean, the first thing they do when they arrive at a potential crime scene is to secure the scene.

“And she goes, ‘because when I was able to see my dog, the, the expression was very peaceful.”

Mr. Jordan says, “I don’t know what happened in this instance or what it’s like, but I’ve seen, when I was at Penn Law, people’s faces who died from one type of passing, and I’ve seen people’s faces who died from horrific violence. And there is a definite difference in the expression.”

Mr. Jordan said, “What I’ve been told, and I don’t know with dogs, but they probably just went to sleep.

“The tragedy of it is you don’t know. And I get it. I understand. The anger and frustration was palpable in the room, but so was from many of the other victims was sort of a sadness because they liked the people and a bad thing happened.”

The sentence was two years probation. The Chronicle asked what that entails.

D.A. Jordan said, “By having them on probation — there are no requirements in New York for what a boarding facility has to be; that’s one of the problems — so what we did here is say, okay, you’re going to be on probation for two years. [Mr. Jordan noted “the maximum is three.”]

“If you choose to — now I doubt these folks ever will again, based on what I’ve heard from friends of theirs, but you know that doesn’t mean much either.

“But if you’re going to start this business, you have to first be in compliance with whatever the best practices is nationwide. And the probation would have the ability to lean on animal control officers…that would be able to provide those standards.”

The Chronicle asked who would call in the animal control officers?

Mr. Jordan said, “By being on probation, there’s home visits. There’ll be regularly scheduled probation meetings up here. They are subject to random visits by probation where they have the right to search the property….It’s like what they do with all probationers that they’re supervising.
“If they started this operation, if someone reports them, then they would do an unscheduled visit.”

The D.A. said they the Palulises cannot be prevented from operating a dog boarding business. “There’s no way to have a permanent prohibition because there’s no way to monitor it.”

Mr. Jordan says, “You’re always going to get a mixed bag of reaction, but unfortunately for those victims, and the public that are outraged and angry as properly based as that may be, it doesn’t change what the facts are and what the law is.

“No one envies anyone who wants to navigate that. But we don’t get to, we aren’t allowed to punish for that.”

Mr. Jordan said, “So, you have here, which truly all of the evidence shows, both by the cooperation and the evidence that was obtained because of their willingness to share, an accident. It was an oversight, and she paid the price for it.”

He noted, “The law is what it is, and, it’s a misdemeanor. To reach the felony is an extraordinarily high standard.”

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