A Nevada man who has served less than eight years of a maximum 28-year prison sentence for killing and torturing dogs urged the parole board to release him after authorities determined he’d been misclassified as a violent offender.
Authorities said on Monday Jason Brown still presents a risk to the community. He pleaded no contest in 2015 to killing and dismembering seven dogs he got off Craigslist in the Reno area.
Brown told the Nevada Parole Board prison has given him “a place to heal” and he’s been working to “rehabilitate myself and prevent this from ever happening again,” the Reno Gazette Journal reported.
The board’s more than 2,000 comments opposing his release, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Kim Yoko Smith said.
A decision is expected May 16.
Brown, a former presidential scholar, was arrested in July 2014 after police found four dog heads inside a mini-refrigerator at his Reno motel room. He said he couldn’t remember anything because he had been injecting heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine.
Corrections officials originally said he wouldn’t be eligible for parole until 2025, but confirmed last month that was wrong because Nevada crimes can only be designated as violent if the victim is human.
Reclassifying him as a non-violent offender made him eligible for earlier consideration based on good behavior and other credits.