Dennis Clara
CARO — Facing alleged crimes in eight separate case files, an Indianfields Township man has been ruled mentally incompetent and will likely not face jail time.
At a Monday competency hearing in Tuscola County District Court, Judge Jason Bitzer read from a report authored by a doctor with the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry who determined that 71-year-old Dennis P. Clara is incompetent to stand trial, and unlikely to gain competency through treatment.
Psychiatric professionals at the state-run center in Saline usually decide on one of three options in regard to defendants – competent, incompetent but likely to gain competency through treatment, and incompetent and not likely to gain competency through treatment.
Clara’s determination was made during a Jan. 12 interview at the center, which offers recommendations on whether or not a defendant understands criminal responsibility, or if a defendant has the capacity to understand a jury trial.
Before Monday’s ruling, Clara faced dozens of criminal counts – mostly misdemeanors – in eight files.
Clara was ordered on Sept. 30 to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
He was sentenced in February 2020 to five years of probation on one count of malicious destruction of between $200 and $1,000 of personal property. In October 2021, he was charged in Tuscola County District Court with a felony count of abandoning/cruelty to 25 or more animals and five animal-related misdemeanors.
He absconded on his probation, leaving the state, and was picked up by police in August upon returning to his home, in the 1500 block of B
When he was arrested in August, Clara was charged with another count of abandoning/cruelty to 25 or more animals – apparently for animals left on Clara’s property when he left Michigan – and four misdemeanor counts of illegal animal burial. The four latter charges state Clara buried animals within one mile of another occupied residential property without being at least four feet underground.
The October 2021 and August 2022 court files are the only set of charges against Clara containing felony counts. Abandoning/cruelty to 25 or more animals is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Clara had been investigated for months by officers from Tuscola County Animal Control and Adoptable Pets.
“It seemed like every time I went out there, there was never any food or water (for the animals),” said animal control officer Anthony Trevino after the October 2021 charges. “And the living quarters were always trashed with junk he throws in the yard.”
In addition, neighbors – at least one of whom has a personal protection order against Clara – complained that Clara’s goats, dogs, and livestock waltzed onto their property.
“It’s been an ongoing issue with this guy for years apparently,” said Trevino, who began investigating Clara when he was hired by Tuscola County in January 2021. “Whether it was his dogs or his goats running at large, there were a lot of complaints.”
In August 2021, Trevino said, Clara surrendered about a dozen dogs, most of them Siberian husky puppies, to authorities. There were two litters of puppies – one with 5-6-week-old huskies, the other with animals about 6-9 months old. They were taken to an out-of-county shelter and put up for adoption.
Two of the remaining six criminal files connected to Clara contain a single count of operating a motor vehicle without security. The other four contain misdemeanor charges connected to Clara’s animals.
In one file, he charged with 16 counts of allowing in animal to roam at large, three counts of owning an unlicensed dog and two counts of allowing a dog to roam unleashed. In another file, he is charged with one count of illegal animal burial. In a third file, he is charged with owning eight unlicensed dogs. And in the fourth file, he is charged with three counts of allowing a dog to roam unleashed.
Clara, who has remained in the Tuscola County Jail since his August arrest, now will wait for prosecutors, the county probation office and defense attorney Jessica Riskey to decide on an inpatient treatment plan. Once a plan is agreed upon, it will be presented before a judge.
