Hi, and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host, Dr. G. And our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. So this is episode one of our season one series, State of Ohio versus Steffen Baldwin. And this episode is named Remi, which is appropriate since Remi was the catalyst that started this whole investigation. So to our listeners, this series is gonna talk about sensitive topics such as animal abuse and domestic violence. So please take care of yourself and if any part of this podcast is hard for you to listen, take a break, and come back. Or just hit the fast forward button. Now don't be worried because you're not gonna be caught by surprise with these topics. We will have a warning ahead. So, um, I wanna introduce you to our first guest, which is Litsa, who was Remi's owner. Thank you for being here, Litsa.

My name is Litsa Kargakos. Um, I've been involved in animal rescue since I was a child in some form or another. What got us heavily involved with having our own rescue was a dog named Petey, and he was a pit bull American bulldog mix. Um, he was, when he was seized in an abuse case, he was heartworm positive. He was completely emaciated. His muzzle was duct taped when they seized him. So, needless to say, he had some behavior issues. Um, we went to Animal Charity. They were, they had seized 130 little dogs and we went to just make a donation. And I see this dog and his, he had, they have a funnel to feed him because nobody could, there were only two people that could handle him from what we were told. Um, it had a sign, they had a shot, clear shower curtain over his like, run. And they had a sign that said, do not touch heartworm positive. Um, so I promised this dog that I was gonna get him out and out of like, everybody was going into all these little dogs and they had pit bull puppies. And of course, I'm attracted to this dog. This is the dog that I wanna help. And I leave there in tears and I tell my husband, I gotta save this dog. He's like, how the hell are we gonna save this dog when nobody could even get near this dog? I'm like, I don't know. I'll figure it out, but I promised him. He's like, this dog has no idea what you promised him. We have no way of getting this dog. What are we gonna do with him? So fast forward a whole bunch of red tape and begging and pleading. I emailed rescues literally all across the country, and at this point I already had like a few thousand dollars in pledges from people that were willing to go ahead and donate if he was saved for his heartworm treatment and things like that. I had a really, really hard time finding a rescue. Um, we did pull him and I told the rescue to sign him over to me as soon as we leave the building, you know, I'll accept all liability on this dog. And he, he took to me instantly. He like, let me rub his belly. He just, I think he figured I'm the only one that was getting him outta there. Um, it took my husband though two months, literally two months of going to see this dog every single day, 'cause we did put him in boarding, um, for probably about two months. A friend of mine owns a local pet resort and she had him in a run that was off from everything. And two of the girls there were fine, absolutely fine with him. He seemed to do a little bit better with women, especially a little bit smaller. He didn't like anybody that was loud or large, I think because of his history. So this dog ended up becoming like for us, the best dog that you could possibly ask for. He loved everybody in the house. He loved the dogs, he loved the cats. And that was kind of like such an eyeopener for me, how there's not a lot of rescues that wanna commit to these dogs that need a little bit of work. So that's where my passion with dogs that weren't easily adoptable, really, really came from.

That's awesome because it takes a special kind of person to adopt these, these dogs. Right? And one of the things that I, that I don't like about some organizations is that they want to get these dogs that need work to people that are not properly prepared to it. And you have to be the right home, the right environment. If not, it can be a complete disaster.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Like how do you manage having, having multiple dogs that need special care?

Um, I mean, it depends on the situation. We don't any dog that we've ever pulled, when we had our rescue, we never pulled more than we knew that if we had to care for and keep them for life, it was fine. Like when Petey was in boarding, we had somebody who was interested. He was a single guy, he was a smaller guy. He spoke very softly. He would've been, you know, a good home that we thought for Petey. And when I saw Petey's reaction, like he was okay for a short period of time with him, and then I saw his personality change and right there I knew that I would never be comfortable putting Petey in a home with anybody else regardless how much he flourished, you know, in a year. If he was a different dog, I wasn't comfortable with it. Um, so it kind of just catered to every dog based on their needs. So we had quite a few dogs that were just very confident dogs. They were very mellow dogs. If a dog reacted towards them, they were non-reactive. And I honestly have to say that was probably the biggest benefit to us bringing those type of dogs in. It was almost like the dogs that had suffered, you know, this horrendous abuse, they kind of fed off of what the other dogs were, the vibes that they were putting out and you know, what they were feeding from, what they were telling 'em. And, you know, their language, their body language, things like that. But that's what I play a big part to it. Don't get me wrong, we've had dogs that haven't gotten along. Um, have we had dog fights? We have. We've had a handful. Um, we were always there, thank God. Um, we separated, you know, the dogs that we needed to. At one point we had six crates in the house, so we always did what we had to do to keep them safe. Um, the one dog, my Lily, she was one of my pities from California, she hated Toula. Toula was a Sharpei Shepherd mix and. She was like my soul dog. This dog was just, she was so bad, but not like aggressive, bad, just like destructive, bad. And any barrier that you put up, she got through, like it was a challenge for her. Lily was fine with her for the six, for six months. And then one day I am laying in my bed and I'm running my bath water and it's like, who's gonna get closest to mom? And a fight broke out and Angelo wasn't home. I'm like, oh my God, how am I gonna break these dogs up? And ones 65 pounds, one is 75 pounds. I'm by myself. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and I was able to, you know, get them apart. Toula rushed her to the vet. She got stitches, um, a couple drainage tubes. Thank God she was okay. But long story short, we learned from every incident and we always made it better. So even when Toula went in her crate, Lily would go after her. So then we got like a training gate and we put around the crate when Toula was in her crate. We had a gate up in the middle of our living room. Me and Angelo slept separate for 10 years. He took Lily to bed. I took Toula to bed. We did whatever we had to do to keep these animals safe. Cause getting rid of an animal once I accept responsibility and they're my personal dogs, I can't do that. I don't believe in that. It's like a kid, if you have a child, in my opinion that you know, has some behavior issues that has, you know, a handicap, you're not just gonna go ahead and get rid of 'em. So we just modify our lives for them.

Yeah, that's something important of people to also, when they're taking these animals and thinking, I'm gonna foster them and I'm gonna find them a home, that that is a possibility that you get stuck with that dog forever and you have to be prepared for that. You have to, to plan ahead of what's gonna happen if you cannot find that perfect home for them.

You do, you do. Like we were, um, fostering one dog that we pulled another pittie from California. We actually pulled him and Lily at the same time, which this is gonna kind of tie into Steffen and the whole California thing. But he was super, super cat aggressive. We fostered him. We always made sure he wasn't in the same room with the cats like he would get so worked up his nose would bleed from his anxiety if the cat was near him. So we knew if we couldn't find the perfect home for this dog. And he didn't like other dogs. Well, he was, I shouldn't say he didn't like, he was very selective with other dogs. Like he liked Lily. He was fine with Lily, they suspect he was a previous fighting dog in California. So there were different triggers with dogs that he'd accept and he wouldn't accept. So we needed to find a house that had no cats and a house that had no dogs. If not, we knew again, we'd have to accommodate our lives. So what are we gonna do to go ahead and make sure that the cats are safe and that the dogs are safe? And luckily we found him an amazing home with an amazing couple. And he just passed away about a year ago from cancer. So he had a really good life. He was their first baby.

So, let's talk about our boy Remi. So when did you become aware of him?

I became aware of Remi from some volunteers had reached out from Trumbull County Pound, and they told me that the warden at the time had it out for the volunteers and that she wanted to go ahead and make an example of the dogs there to show the volunteers. It was her pound and she could do what she wants. There was, she was a very, very difficult woman. She was a breeder, which to me is completely hypocritical in the position of being a dog warden. Like there's all these dogs that are strays, that people have abandoned. And then you're breeding dogs on the other hand. So. I probably disliked the woman right from that point when I found out. But a bunch of volunteers had spoken up because they were actually euthanizing dogs on the pound floor and they weren't certified to do so, and they weren't doing it properly. And these dogs were suffering for like five and six hours and they had the public coming through and they were throwing sheets out of over these dogs as they were dying. So she was just a terrible, terrible woman in my opinion. And she was mad at the volunteers because they took it to the media and they had to do things a little bit different. They had to take it to a licensed vet to be euthanized then. And Remi was one of the examples that she wanted to make. And he did bite somebody there. But it was, it wasn't Remi's fault. I don't blame Remi in the least. None of the volunteers blamed Remi. They knew he was a resource guarder. He was marked as a resource guarder.

Can you really quick, I don't know that our, our audience necessarily knows what resource guarding means. Sure. Can you explain what that means?

Sure. It's basically anything that they fixate on that they feel is theirs. Um, whether it's a couch that they're laying on, whether it's a toy that they feel that they want, it's theirs, and getting it from them or getting them to surrender it is usually a challenge. So if he felt the couch was his and he was resource guarding that you weren't going on that couch. So he, um, but he had a Kong in his crate with, I don't, I, I believe he had peanut butter in it. And somebody who was doing their community service put their hand in to get this Kong while he was in his crate, and he reacted. But it was literally a drag bite. It wasn't, it, I don't even think it punctured. I saw pictures of it. It literally, the cat scratch is much worse than what Remi did. So that gave her the fuel to go ahead and say, Hey, I'm gonna euthanize this dog. And she was able to justify it with that. So that's when the volunteers reached out, was after that incident. They explained the bite to me. I wasn't hesitant when I saw the bite. I understood, I was a well aware resource guarding. We've worked with dogs that had resource guarding. It's common with rescue dogs. Um, so fast forward we ended up hiring an attorney to get this dog out because the warden was not giving Remi up. He, she was adamant she was gonna go ahead and euthanize. And I told the attorney, do what you gotta do. Put a stay order. We will take this to court. We'll do what we have to do. I want to save this dog. So she was able to get him released. Um, it, but it came with terms, which was deeming him as a dangerous dog.

And what does that mean? When a dog is deemed a dangerous dog in Ohio?

It requires additional liability insurance. The dog has to be muzzled anytime that they're outside. They have to be, I believe it's a six or eight foot fence at all times. There has to be, some areas have to be covered. There's a whole list of restrictions that we had to follow. They have to be, if you walk them, you can't walk them with like a material leash. It has to be, um, stainless steel or metal leash. There were, there were a lot of things that made it hard on dogs that didn't justify it. And getting a dangerous dog ordinance removed is difficult.

So had you met Remi before you started this whole attorney thing?

Nope. They wouldn't even let me meet him.

So how, you know, so you get Remi and then what was your first impression of him?

He was a gorgeous, beautiful dog. His tail was waggin'. He was a happy boy. I mean, initially you could tell he just wanted out of there. He was like, get me the hell outta here. Um, and then when we brought him home, we had an area set up in the basement for him. Again, we didn't know if he was cat reactive, if he was dog reactive. He showed no reaction at the pound. But once he came into home, different sounds, different, you know, smells, different, things like that. We weren't sure. So we had an indoor pen in the basement and we had a kuranda bed, blankets, you know, all that stuff for him until he got neutered. And we were able to go ahead and work him in with our, with our life. He got neutered, I wanna say, I don't know, less than a week later. Um, we had the gastropexy done on him. We got him neutered. And probably within two weeks you just saw like a huge difference. Like when we first got him, he was urinating on the blankets every time I changed them. So like four or five times a day we were putting fresh blankets, sanitizing the floor down there. And within two weeks that all started to stop. And then you started to see Remi's personality, his true personality come out. And he was, he was a trip. He was a happy go lucky dog. He was very appreciative and grateful for everything that you gave him. Um, he loved toys, he loved his blankets. He loved fluff his blankets before he'd lay down. He, he was a good boy. He, he was a good boy. He showed zero reaction towards the cats. He showed zero reaction towards the dogs. He was like, just in his own happy world.

So how long did you have him before you decided that, that he needed more work than what you were doing with him?

It wasn't really even the work, because we were working with Jenny, who I know you're gonna interview, um, down the road, and we worked through his issues. Steffen had happened to come over for an appointment that we had set because we believed everything we saw on social media. You know, this guy's a miracle work group dog. He's the dog whisperer, and we had taken Lily to Jenny and I thought, you know what, maybe there's like a different approach. Maybe there's something that we're not doing to get these two dogs to get along. So he, we had scheduled him like a month or two prior before even knowing that Remi existed to come for Toula and Lily and he had so happened to come shortly after we got Remi. And he came in the Remi, it was actually within that first week, 'cause Remi was still in the basement. And he went down and he met him and he's like, yeah, he is, no problem. And he gave us a list for Toula and Lily of, um, the rating, like how you could tell when a dog is super mad, like that color coded one, which is, I mean like, come on, like Google gives you more information than that. It, I, it, there wasn't much, the visit wasn't long, but that's where everything started with Remi. That's where he told us, we were talking about the, um, dangerous dog designation. And you know, if Remi got to point that he was, that we were able to work past all of these resource guarding issues and things like that, how difficult is it to have a dangerous dog designation removed? And then that's where the conversation started. Normally it's extremely difficult, but I can do it. And he made his offer, which was if we gave him a thousand dollars. Because he was the county Humane agent. He can have it removed in Union County.

And that was the, the whole thing, right? Like his position of authority and his position within the Union County government, that that's what allowed him to do something like this that would otherwise be very difficult.

Absolutely. And I mean, I guess looking back now, being naive with the situation, 'cause I never had a dangerous dog before. I believed him. I di I wasn't aware that it had to go to court. I thought, okay, he's the humane agent. You p you petition the county and this is just removed. And that's the way that he portrayed it when he presented it to us. That's exactly how he made it sound. This dog's gonna come to Union County, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna get this removed. I didn't even know if like just him being a humane agent, if that's how it's just removed. Like if he can just remove it on his own. And I said to him, I'm like, are you sure that you can do that that easy? He said, yes, it's my county. Which again, he literally said those words. And again, I'm thinking, okay, this guy can have it removed. Like it was never a question. It never dawned on me that this was a scam, that he couldn't have it removed. Like where would somebody even think of that? Like I had no reason not to believe it.

So what was, so you had to pay him to get it removed. Did you have to pay him anything else for either training or boarding or anything like that?

No. The deal was that he said Remi had to go under him so that he can go ahead and get it removed because he had to be a resident of Union County, basically Remi to go ahead and have it removed in Union County. And we paid him the thousand dollars he was gonna get the designation removed. He said he had a huge network. He even mentioned his buddy Gordon Shell, he said, you know, he had a lot of connections in Michigan and that Michigan didn't recognize dangerous dog designations from Ohio. He said, so if we, whatever comes first, if we can find a great home for him in Michigan, if we can find, you know, phenomenal adopter out of state or getting it removed. But he said what's gonna probably happen soon is, is get the designation removed and once it got removed, if he didn't have an adopter lineup, Remi was supposed to come back to us.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. Kind of like what were the, what was the setup of the arrangement or what was the arrangement? So, you know, he's going to find him a home, he's gonna bring him back once the designation is gone so that you can either keep him or adopt him out.

Yeah, it was exactly, you know what I had just said that either he was gonna find him a forever home. And I, I questioned him. I'm like, why? I wanna vet these people if you find him a home, because I've had this dog in my home for four months. We, you know, we fell in love with this dog. He was already integrated in the home. Like, it wasn't the only reason that Remi went, and I, I hate to say this because this sounds, I don't know, I guess it could be interpreted in a multitude of ways, but if Remi was an asshole, we would've kept him. If he was a jerk, we would've kept him. Like Dingo, our one dog, he's batshit crazy. He was gonna be put down at Animal Charity like eight, nine years ago. Multiple rescues went into pull this dog, they weren't comfortable giving them to any of the rescues. Um, we went in and they thought that I was crazy when I went in, but this dog, they had him from a puppy. They had him, um, Dingo, from four months old, and he would lunge at people and, you know, four months old. Okay, no big deal. But then you have, you know, 60 pound shepherd mix lunging at people. It's not cute anymore. So they try to go ahead and euthanize him on the down low. And one of the employees there actually spoke up and put up a post. And when I went to meet this dog, I can see it was all fear-based, and Jenny actually had recommended that he be euthanized, but she recommended if he had to stay in that environment because it was not good for his mental wellbeing. It was, he was not thriving there. He was regressing, he was doing terrible there. So when we went to meet him, my first reaction was, this dog is scared. I wanna see what his reaction is, if he bites. So I went in, my husband stood to the side and two people from Animal Charity, um, we're like up, the one girl was able to handle 'em. The one lady wasn't, but she was the one that set up the meeting. And I pulled up my arm from my hoodie and I put just my sleeve down to see what it would do. And he bit my sleeve and he looked at me because he didn't get the reaction that he was anticipating that he'd gotten for, what he was four months when they got him, I think, and he was like a year at this point. So eight months he'd bite. People would, you know, run away or he'd lunge and they'd run away. He didn't actually bite anybody at that point. So when I, he made the eye contact with me, he ran back to the girl that he was okay with and sat next to her and just looked at her like, oh shit. So Dingo was the dog that we knew he was never gonna be able to be adopted. He was, when we adopted him, we adopted him to personally keep him because he is a jerk. And to this day, like he's, he is phenomenal. He is such a good boy. I could do anything to Dingo. I mean, I'll give him a Cytopoint shots. I clean his ears, I do his nails. Anything that I need to do to this dog, he's fine. He is good with the cats, he is good with everybody, but strangers, he just doesn't like strangers. So we always make sure we never set him up for failure. When people come over, he either comes upstairs and gets locked up or he goes in his crate. I'm not doing that to another human and I'm not putting him in his situation. But Remi was never that dog. Remi was people friendly. Like we had the dog sitter came in within the first week of us having Remi because we didn't plan on getting Remi and they wouldn't even tell us when we were getting him. They were like, you have 24 hours to come pick up this dog, or you have till the end of day like something crazy to come get this dog or we're euthanizing him. So it was very unexpected and we had plans to go away for Ohio Bike week. So that was another reason of the outdoor pen, 'cause I didn't want the dog sitter to be like in a small area with a dog that we weren't that familiar with. Then she works at the pet resort that I had said my friend owns, so she's, you know, very familiar with different behaviors of dogs and, but he was fine with her even from the beginning. So Remi was never a dog once you met him, that you would've felt was ever be unadoptable. That's one of the reasons that we agreed to send him to re to Steffen because he deserved a home of his own.

And did he say about how long the whole process was gonna take?

He didn't he, he did not. He'd never put a timeline from just like key words and the way the conversation went. I didn't expect it to be too long, but he, he never gave like a definitive time and he always made it sound like he was so busy. Like when he would reply to messages, oh, I'm so busy, I'll get back to you. You know, I'm have so many humane cases and believing what I saw on social media. I believed this. I believed, okay, this guy is super overwhelmed. He's out there saving dogs. He's out there taking dogs outta bad situations, you know, pulling dogs from kill shelters. Like Remi is fine. He is, I thought he was living in his house and you know, no big rush when he gets to it, you know? And then we start reaching out and the conversations got fewer and longer gaps in between. And then he just stopped replying.

So when, let's talk about when he, like, did he come to get him or did you take him to his house?

We met halfway. My husband, I was at work and my husband met him halfway, I think in Canton. I think in Canton it was.

And about when, when did that happen?

That was September 9th.

And this is 2016, right?

Yes. Of 16.

So he has, he has Remi. You said the communications little by little got got worse. So how, how was it at first? Was he sending you pictures? Was he sending you videos or what was that? What was that like?

Both. He sent videos of him skateboarding with Remi. He sent videos of Remi in the yard with his other dogs. Remi looked happy in all of the pictures that he sent in the beginning. I thought, you know what? I made the right decision because we cried. Even my husband cried so hard letting Remi go. And again, he was such, he was a good dog and, like, I can't tell you like the nightmares that I had going back to the one video the day that Remi left, because he has his front paws on my husband. He's looking at him in his eyes and then my husband called me and he's like, I don't know if I could do this. He's like, I don't think I could take him. He's like, I don't think I could let him go. And we're both bawling. And I'm like, I love you so much. And then Kelly, who was the one that watched him that um, also worked at the pet resort, she's like, you know, he's this amazing, you know, trainer. He is this amazing guy. He's gonna find Remi a home of his own. Because in my mind I'm like, okay, worst thing that's gonna happen to Remi here is he's gonna have to be created all day when we go to work. But Remi was a good dog. Like he didn't destroy anything. He didn't get into anything and he didn't deserve that. And I felt bad for that. And little did I know it was gonna happen.

So when would you say that the communication started getting really bad?

It was December, because I was actually off for two weeks for Christmas and New Year's, and I was adamant that I wanted to go see Remi and I wasn't getting any response. I was like, "Hey, I'm off two weeks when I come, can I come down?" And we were supposed to go down earlier. We're supposed to go down. Well first my husband was supposed to go down a week after we got Remi. And up until the night before, Steffen was like, yeah, we're on. You know, this and that. My husband was gonna go spend the weekend there. And then he didn't reply. We heard nothing from him. Well then that's when he was doing that whole thing with Gordon Shell in Michigan. And then he was like, oh, something came up. And again, you know, super busy. So we didn't know if it had something to do with that. So then I said, okay, when can we come see 'em? And he said, well, you could come, I forgot what weekend it was, but it was within the first month. And I said, well, we're bringing two dogs from California, which were another two. Um, we brought Lonnie and Daisy. From California and I said, well, that weekend's not gonna work because these dogs are coming on transport from California. I said, how about the following weekend? He is like, oh, I'm gonna be outta town, but I can have him out in the barn. And I said, I don't wanna see him out in the barn. I said, I wanna see him in your house. I wanna see how he's interacting with your dogs, how he's interacting with you, your son. Like I wanna make sure that he's okay. He's like, okay, we'll set something up soon. And then that was pretty much it. And then at Christmas I reached out multiple times to try to go see Remi and I got no response. And then when I finally had had enough 'cause I contacted the dog warden, I contacted the commissioners, I contacted the sheriff and asked him to do a welfare check on this dog, like everybody humanly possible that I thought that can help and make sure that this dog was okay. And I called the dog warden's office. We found out that he hadn't gotten any dog licenses, and that was a huge other concern for me because if Remi is not registered with his dangerous dog designation, can that be something that they could come take him and euthanize him for? Because you have to make sure that you're, you know, that's a big thing in the state. They have to know if you move with a dangerous dog where you're moving, where this dog is staying, like constant, kind of like a, I guess, a human on parole. Like you kind of always have to check in with the county and let them know. And when Steffen took Remi, I had to write a letter to the county and let them know, Hey, this dog is now in Union County. Um, so it was just, it, it was downhill from that point. And I made all these calls and nobody wanted to help. So I was like, all right, what am I gonna do now? I need to make sure this dog's okay. So I had, I. And I, I was messaging him and telling him that, Hey, I'm reaching out to the commissioners. Hey, like, I didn't do this stuff behind anybody's back. And then at one point I said to him, um, I can't, I think it was with the commissioners. I think that was the conversation that I had texted him and said, Hey, I'm reaching out to the commissioners. And he called me and he called me while I was at work. And I'll never forget this conversation because he didn't call very frequently. But right after I sent him a message, it triggered him. And I'd have to go through my messages. 'cause it's, it's been so long now, like sometimes the order gets a little bit, I have to revisit it, but I wanna say I'm 99% sure it was after the message with the commissioners that he had called. And he said that he was going through all kind of stuff and he's not posting this on social media, but he's gone through this terrible depression because the girl who he had started his rescue with, um, Shelby had gotten killed. And it was her, I think he said her one year anniversary. And I have messages like with a lot of the context from the conversation and in so many words, I said, I'm not trying to sound un unempathetic, but I really don't care. I wanna know how the dog is, how is Remi? And he told me he was doing great. He told me he was living in a foster home with somebody who was a volunteer at ACT. And I said, okay, give her my contact information. I wanna see Remi, I wanna see pictures, I wanna do a FaceTime. I need to know this dog is okay. And he said, well, she's not talking to me right now. I was like, she has a dog that's still under act. Like what do you mean she's not talking to you? How do you have one of your dogs out there that you don't check in on? So that was like a huge red flag to me because when we had dogs and fosters, I mean, multiple times a week we checked on these dogs. We provided them with their food, with their toys, their treats. Like we did everything, even when dogs got adopted, like I always checked in with the adopters. I'm still in contact with the dogs that are still alive that we adopted out, um, you know, with their adoptive families. So that was like, what do, what do you mean? Like that just that didn't set right with me? And he said, yeah, she's mad at me because they put in all this work and we put up all this fencing and now I have to dissolve ACT. And they feel like all their work didn't mean anything. I said, I don't care. I said, that is ACT's dog. You need to get me a meeting with that dog. I wanna make sure he is okay. And he's like, okay. He's like, I'll email her. And then he said she doesn't have a computer, she doesn't do a lot on a computer. So like, what do we need to do? Like send a pigeon in there, like what? Whatever it is, I need to know where this dog is. Give me her address, I'll contact or whatever we have to do.

And then, and this was through January or into February? Or is it about when?

This would've been in fe It was in February. 'cause in March I had finally had enough. So in March was like, I have to find out what happened to this dog. And I played out so many different scenarios. Is he using him for dog fighting? Is he, was he hit by a car? Is he, did he run away? Like anything that you could imagine? I've played out that scenario in my mind. So then that's when I went to social media and we started with the reward and we started the reward with a thousand dollars. And it ended up going up to 5,000 because we had a lot of people from Trumbull County who were volunteers then that had pledged towards, if we found out what happened to Remi, that they'd help me pay this reward. And when I put that up, it said, where's Remi? Ask Steffen Baldwin. And I put his phone number. I knew that the only way to get a reaction from Steffen at this point was social media, because he was still active on social media all of his time. He couldn't reply to text message, he couldn't answer a phone call. He couldn't set an hour of his day aside so I go see this dog that we were, you know, heavily emotionally invested in. And he, that's, he turned his phone off. He went completely dark, he went completely dark. He turned on off his social media pages, his phone was completely off for two days. I get a phone call from the attorney on Sunday. And when I saw that she was calling me on a Sunday, I just started bawling 'cause I knew it was bad. And she said, Steffen wants to have a mediation. And the first thing was that he wanted me to sign that I would not talk about it. And I said, that's not even up for discussion, that's not gonna happen. I said, we could just end this conversation now. And so she reached back out to him and he agreed um, to not add those terms. So we met in a neutral location. He drove up here and it was me and my husband and the attorney. 'cause she represented both rescues and Steffen. And that's when he gave me his plethora of lies of what happened with Remi.

And so you reached out to her? She was, was she your attorney or what? Did you reach out to her because she was his attorney?

Well, she was the attorney that helped me get Remi out. So she had, was representing No Fear Rescue. She had done, she had done our adoption contract. She had done some different things. Um, she had done, you know, a will for us, different, you know, different things. And then she represented ACT, I don't know if she ever represented Steffen personally, but I know she represented ACT. So she was just there as, I guess as a mediator. And we both signed papers that state, well actually she forgot the paper, so we signed email copies that we were both aware that she wasn't, you know, that she had represented the other one at some point.

Okay. Like a conflict of interest type? Yeah. Paperwork. So you were expecting kind of the worst going into this meeting. You go in and what was his, because you know, he's just always so smug and he thinks that he can get away with anything. So what was. What did he look like and how did he receive you when you came in?

His normal self um, a little bit more mellow than normal. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't his chipper, you know, his chipper self. Um, and I think that, going back to what you just said, or to piggyback off of what you said, you know, his normal smug self, I think that's why he wanted to do the mediation because he was such a con artist. He was, he was charming. He told people what they wanted to hear. He always made it sound like whatever your passion was, that that was his passion too. And I think that he thought meeting in person would give him the opportunity to calm me down because he saw at this point, I wasn't anything that he had dealt with in this decade in animal rescue that they just took Steffen at face value.

What did he have to say to you? Or how did the whole thing start?

Well, when it first started, I laid an envelope down on the paper and I had all of these things that I presume Steffen was gonna say, and the envelope was sealed, and I just placed on the table. I didn't say anything, just had it placed on the table. And well, I had it in my purse at first, and as the conversation went on, I placed it on the table. And he told me that Remi was euthanized because he was involved in a dog fight, that he killed Zach, and that Remi had horrific wounds and that he had to euthanize him. And he pulls out this piece of paper, and it wasn't a paper that I ever saw before. I mean, we've, you know, we've had animals put down because they've had cancer, we've had to have animals euthanized. Our last dog, well Lonnie, passed away, um, at Akron Emergency, but before that Zeno, we had a vet come to the house, so she was 17 and a half. We wanted her in her own home. And none of the paperwork ever looked like anything like this that I had seen. It was just a list of medications. And that kind of struck me funny. He would only show me the bottom part of this paper. It had Remi's name and it had, like I said, medications. I didn't know what any of that meant. And he said they were euthanasia medications. And again, he said, you know what a good boy Remi was. And that somehow he got out of his run and that he attacked Zach and they got in this terrible fight and there was no choice but to euthanize Remi because of the wounds.

So he tells you this, what, where does it go from there?

So I immediately didn't believe it because again, I spent four months with Remi. He never showed any dog reactivity in my house. He never showed any at the pound. In my opinion, the pound brings out and shelters bring out the worst in a dog. And if he didn't show any there, I didn't believe this dog was dog reactive. So I said to Steffen, I said, well, where's Zach? He said, he's cremated on my shelf, on my bookcase at home. And I said, well, where's the cremation record? And he looked at the attorney, he said, she didn't tell me to bring that. And I said to him, she didn't know I was gonna ask for that. And not having a long relationship other than just through rescue things with this attorney, she didn't know me very well. I didn't know her, so she had no way of predicting what kind of individual I was, what I was gonna ask for, what I was gonna say. She had a much deeper relationship with Steffen at that point. And I looked at him and I said, okay, no problem. I said, it's 3:30. I said, crematory should be open. I said, call the crematory. I said, within 24 hours, there should be a cremation of Zach from the time that you claim this happened to Remi, that you had him euthanized. And this was the first time I ever saw the true Steffen. He literally, his face turned beet red veins were coming out of his neck. And if he could have lunged over the table, I have no doubt that he would've. And my husband's a bigger guy and he's sitting next to me. So you can see it took like every piece of restraint that Steffen had not to blow up, and he still tried to sell this to me. Then that's when I kind of started, you know, flipping out. I just start, you know, throwing things at him. I don't believe a damn thing you're saying. You're a con artist, you're a liar. You know, Remi did nothing wrong. And I just went through the whole thing like Remi was fine here. He was fine with cats, he was fine with dogs. You know, you're a liar. On and on and on. And then he stepped like pushing it and pushing it. I said, there's nothing that you can say that can make me believe a word that you say. And I actually told him, I said, you know what? I said, I'm done with you. And I said, you can just go. And he looked at the attorney and we stayed back with the attorney because we actually had our will changed because we had Steffen as the executor of our will up to that point. That's how much I trusted this man. I trusted him with my personal animals. And like that's another whole thing of what really settles so raw was settling so wrong with me. Like, what if we would've gotten killed? What if something would've happened with my husband and I together? All my animals would probably be dead too.

That's just horrible. And yeah, I mean, he met his match with you because he's just used to talking, especially he thinks he can talk to any woman and they're gonna just like woo over him. So he, he has the, you know, this thing that he thinks of himself and to tell you his bullshit story and then you don't believe it. To him, that had to be a huge crush to his ego, you know, that, that you're just telling him "That's not it. Tell me what really happened."

And I think that's what caused him to get so angry because no matter what he put out, I just wasn't believing it. And I was just coming back at him with something else to question what he was saying. And I told him that day, I said, you killed the wrong dog. And so to see this all play out and that I got to keep my word with that, that gives a little bit of comfort. That Remi didn't die in vain, that we were able to get justice for him. But he was just such a conniving human being, like, I've never met such a pathological, compulsive liar that it seemed like lies came out of his mouth easier than the truth. Had he just said, you know, Litsa, I fucked up if Remi would have gotten in a fight, not for him, euthanizing him for anything, but that's something I might've been able to digest. But him just trying to cover every single thing up, you know, and the more they try to cover it up, the more I saw these red flags and the more I disbelieved, like, too much of this story you're trying to paint too perfect of a picture around this. Um, so yeah, that's, that was the day that I saw the real Steffen and my husband walked out with him, and my husband said, you do not understand how bad you have destroyed my wife over this. Because he was there through the nightmares and I had nightmares for months not knowing what happened to Remi. And Steffen looked at my husband and he put his hands up and he's like, please don't hit me. That was his reaction. My husband was like, dude, you're not worth me hitting you. He's like, you're not worth me going to jail for. But it makes you think, what other sides are there of Steffen, that that was his first reaction. And my husband just walked, you know, right back inside. He just wanted to tell him that. And he didn't wanna say it in front of me, but the fact that he just went straight to violence, that started putting up more flags. Then, you know, what else does this guy do and who does he do it to? And then the more we started digging and the more we started researching, and then I knew, okay, he did this to Remi, what am I gonna do to get justice for Remi? I've got to do something. So my goal was to destroy Steffen in the animal world. That was my ultimate, ultimate goal. I did not want him to ever have the opportunity to harm another animal. So kept gathering information, put up posts on, you know, justice for Remi, if you've had a poor experience with Steffen. If anything with Steffen. So I was, started getting messages, I got messages from a couple ex-girlfriends, um, started communicating with them, started communicating with others whose dogs went missing. So I was just compiling all of this information and we found out about him getting a license for Remi four months after he killed him to try to give me, get me to believe the story, because he had told, he went to the dog warden's office after I called the dog warden to get this license. And she leaves me a message and she's like, oh, Remi, she got her license. And I'm thinking to myself, well that's kind of odd that the dog warden doesn't even know that a dangerous dog in her county is a male. So start putting everything together. Everything together. And then a friend of mine who is heavily involved in animal rescue and um, different humane agency, she says, Hey, I have this buddy who's a cop that maybe he can give you some pointers with what information you need to gather, what evidence you need. And that's how I met Officer Conroy and he's like, well, where are you in Trumbull County? I was like, I'm not in Trumbull County. I'm in Mahoning and I'm in Campbell. And he said he was an officer in Campbell. So I felt like everything aligned, whether you believe, you know, in God, Karma, Universe, I felt that that's when everything started aligning so that we can go ahead and put a stop to him.

Yeah, I think that everything that could have gone right for you and everything that could have gone wrong for Steffen happened, right? Like he, he has the worst karma and he deserves all the bad things that he gets. But he just has the worst karma of anybody that I have ever met. So

I you a thousand percent.

So you're still posting on Facebook and you're asking people for any information on anything. And at that point, had he given you information of where he had been euthanized?

He did not. He did not. Again, the paper that he had, he had it covered, and it was just the bottom. And so I just kept gathering everything and I reached out to anybody that I knew was affiliated with Steffen and it was like, Hey, you don't wanna believe me? You don't have to believe me, but here's proof that he got a license after the dog was dead. You know, here's our messages of him saying the dog's doing good. I mean, I emailed Bark Box, I emailed Huffington Post. Anybody that was affiliated with him that I saw his name with, I was emailing them, I was messaging them, whatever I could, you know, possibly do so that no other animal would end up with the same faith that Remi did.

So for people that don't know this, I euthanized Remi. And I have to live with the fact that I'm the person that euthanized Remi. And my recollection was of one of the doc doctors that I worked with sends me this message saying There's somebody on Facebook asking about this dog, and I think that it's a dog that you may have seen" because they knew that I worked with Steffen and at that point we were not doing a lot of stuff with him. But, I see the post and immediately I know which dog it is. And you know, it, it hurts so bad to know this dog had somebody. And that's when I decided to email you on Facebook, because I certainly at that point did not have any kind of loyalty to him. And that was the first time that I realized that there was a problem as far as the animals. And further into the, into the episodes, we're gonna talk about my issues with him, which were more financial and fraud. But this is the very first time that I thought, what's happening here? Because this is not the story that that he told me. And really, I remember reaching out to you,

and I really appreciate that you did, because it kind of, it gave a little bit of closure with how he was euthanized.

And you know. Just so that people know as far as the, how far the lies go is he told you about how he got into this horrible fight. He got out of the, out of the kennel. He killed this other dog, and he had these severe injuries and he had to be euthanized because of these injuries and because, uh, of the fight. And that day, I just remember it so clearly, like I remember everything about that day and it's a little bit of personal stuff and then some things that were happening at the, at the office that day. But I remember him coming in the front door and saying, I have a dog that is a dangerous dog that just killed another dog, and I can't bring him up the front because I'm afraid that he may hurt another dog. So I need to come in the back door. And I said, okay, you know, we'll meet you in the back. So he comes in the back and when he brings the dog, one of my assistants that was helping me with surgery that day saw him and she asked what was happening and I said, Steffen says that this is a dangerous dog, and he killed another dog, so he has to euthanize him. And my assistant, Ashlie, actually started crying. She had to step out from surgery because she had become invested in Remi's story. So, you know, it's somebody that had never met the dog that is really upset about the fact because she didn't think that that was gonna be his end. She thought that this dog was gonna have a happy life after everything that happened, you know?

And even with that story that he told you, he had to be euthanized, that was a contract that I had as the owner with Trumbull County. That didn't carry over when we transferred Remi to Steffen. Even if Remi would've killed a dog, which I don't believe for a heartbeat he did. He, he, he was not dog aggressive. He didn't have to euthanize him. He still could have gave him back. And I had given Steffen an out when he took Remi. I was very, very specific. I said, if he's regressing, if he's not happy, if he doesn't want to eat, if he's just depressed, call us. We will be back there that day. He could have simply picked up the phone and said, you know what, Remi seems sad, Litsa. He just doesn't seem happy here anymore. I really tried, but I think he would be happy to come back and we would've been back there that day. And that's what makes it so hard too. And I think this goes back to like how Remi was the trigger for you when you found out that how shitty of a human being Steffen was. If he did this to a dog, that somebody was still willing to do anything for, like, we sent Remi with like probably four or $500 worth of stuff there. We sent him with two bags of Origin dog food, dog treats, Kongs, dog beds, crate pads, everything that you can imagine. And I was checking in on him consistently. What's happening to animals? What is he doing to these animals that he's pulling from shelters and that he's pulling from other rescues that, you know, might be overwhelmed and don't have time to check up on their animal? So how many more dogs are there? So, not to change the path, but it just kind of tied into what you were saying.

No, absolutely. And you know, he just, he brings this dog that is such a dangerous dog, but he brings it in and Remi's just kind of like scoping the place out. Like doesn't look scared, doesn't look aggressive. Uh, but that said, there are dogs that react differently in different situations. And as the humane officer of Union County. I have no reason to doubt his words saying "he has a dangerous dog registration, he killed another dog, and he has to be euthanized." So, you know, I believed him. I wrote everything down and, um, you know, sedated Remi as we normally did, and then euthanized him. So, you know, he, he does that. And then one of the things that was happening that day, one of the, the reasons I remember that day, is that we had just received a large piece of equipment. We had received a CT scan and we didn't have all the funds to pay for it. So, you know, this is gonna come a little bit later as far as how he's saying that he was so upset and so sad and, you know, with his girlfriend and all this stuff, but he didn't skip a beat. He euthanizes the dog and then starts talking to me about, "Hey, um, will I be out of your shit list if I, if I help you get funds for this CT scanner?" And starts talking about other stuff, like, you know, it's, he, he was not tore up. He was not upset. He was

not the fact that he just took this life,

right? And, and so I also remember that he went home. And he made a post on Instagram about, um, I think it, it was like some picture of like flowers and tampons and chocolates.

I remember that very, very well.

Yeah. And then saying about, you know, like, kind of like the boyfriend kit for when your girlfriend's having her period or something like that. Which, what a douche bag. Um, but like there was nothing that day that he was so upset about for then the reasons that he gave you, why he couldn't talk to you about it and why he couldn't say anything about it. So. Again, when I see the, the comments on Facebook and the story that you're putting on Facebook and what he said, I felt that it was my responsibility to reach out to you and let you know what happened, where it happened, that I was the one who did it. So if you had any questions you could ask and to let you know that he was not tore up the way that, that Steffen had said.

And I think that that played a big key in the fact that when I did go to Officer Conroy, being able to say, we know a hundred percent that this is not true. So I think it definitely, 'cause I'm not gonna lie, not knowing you, not knowing that you were the vet that did it, presuming that it was you, only because of the fact that you saw, you know, a lot of affiliated posts that he would mention you in. I hated you. I'm like, okay, why did she kill this dog? And especially once I had asked, you know, where Zach's cremation records were. So, but then you telling me, you know, you didn't question it. 'cause he is the humane agent. I realized we were in the same boat at that point.

Yeah. It's, um, the, there was a, a reporter from the Vindicator that I spoke with last week and he said, you know, we have a friendship now that started with something pretty horrible. Right. Um, and I don't know, I, when, when I reached out to you, I expected you to be mad because you sounded so angry in all of your posts. Right. And, and everything was very aggressive and very, you know, like I'm seeking justice and I was part of that. So I felt, you know, she's gonna be mad at me. But different to Steffen, I'm somebody that I wanna be upfront and honest with what's happening. Right. And, and I'll take, and I'll take what I, what I need to get, you know. If I make a mistake, I'll own it and, and go from there. Uh, which is something that he definitely did not. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, from, from there I know that then Detective Conroy started looking into me, um, just thinking that I was involved because, I mean, we worked so closely together that he thought that, you know, we were partners.

Yeah. He, once everything started coming out as Steffen, I think anybody who was closely affiliated with Steffen kind of had a spotlight on them and scrutiny. Whether they were or weren't doing things wrong because it was like, okay, how can somebody work so closely with him? How can somebody be part of his life, whether you know, a personal aspect or a business aspect and not see these red flags? And then when you did reach out and, you know, the more that we got to talk, the more the resentment with you diminished. Because I understand why you did it based on what he told you. I know if we could fast forward or you had a crystal ball and you knew the other side, or you had seen the posts of Remi, I have no doubt that you would've reached out, you know, beforehand.

Oh, absolutely. Because, you know, it's, I, I am a big believer that euthanasia is something that we do compassionately for animals. Because animals, whether they're, they have poor physical health or poor mental health, sometimes they're, they're sadly so broken that euthanasia is the last resort. But when there's an animal that doesn't need to be euthanized and somebody gives me a lie to euthanize that animal, I'm being used almost as a weapon. Right.

Thousand percent.

And that's really upset me about the whole thing, was the fact that he used me to get, get his way. You know, he had no, he had no cares or empathy for you. He had no care or empathy for me in this whole thing. He's just, this dog's in my way and I'm going to get rid of it and then just pitch whatever lies I can say, because that's just the way he, he was used to getting away with everything.

When he had a goal or he had his mindset, he'd run over anything or anybody in between getting him there.

That gets started you with Detective Conroy and at what point does he figure that there's more to the story?

Well, once I had put up the post and I asked for information, I went to him with, I don't know, hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces of information and printouts, and he started reading through it. And I think that he realized that the case was much bigger than just me. And he was very, detective Conroy did not share a lot of information throughout the process, and there were times that I got frustrated with him. Because I'm like, why aren't we just pressing charges for Remi? Like, why is he not being held accountable? And we had a different attorney at that point, um, that wasn't the one that was affiliated with me and Steffen. We had a personal attorney and he wanted to go ahead and he said, "Hey, we definitely have a case here. Let's go after him civilly, let you know Officer Conroy, go ahead and press, you know, the criminal charges, whatever he could get with that." And I never wanted to go after Steffen financially because it was never the money for me. It was, I never wanted anybody to think that I was bashing Steffen because I wanted this money back. We had probably $4,000 invested in Remi at this point, and it was never, it was never financial. I never wanted a price tag associated. When we had that mediation, I guess going back, he offered to reimburse me everything for Remi. I said, you can't put a price on his life. Like I, if anything, I got even more offended that he thought that that was gonna make his problem go away. And so I knew that we had a case based on what the attorney said. The attorney had talked to Jim. Um, it's a very small community. The attorney was in Struthers, but he actually used to be, um, work for the city of Campbell too. He used to actually be the chief of police in Campbell. So he knew Officer Conroy, and he knew that, you know, there was a case 'cause he was the chief of police before. So he knew we had a case. And like I said, I got frustrated with Conroy though, man, 'cause he wouldn't like give any, he is very, everything's monotone with him and it's very hard to get a read on him. So you didn't know if things were going good. You didn't know if things are going bad. The responses that I'd usually get from him are just be patient, it's coming. Just be patient. Something's gonna come with this. It was, I had no idea until grand jury, like how serious everything was and they start going through the counts. And then you and I, you and I had spoken briefly at the courthouse that day and that was like the real moment that I started realizing how much shit he must have done.

Yeah. It's, it would, I don't think that he ever, in his wildest dreams imagined how much stuff he was going to find and you know, how many charges were gonna end up being, being raised against Steffen. So, you know, that's what we're going to be discussing in future episodes. We're gonna take the, this podcast series and we are going to go through the whole investigation from everything that Detective Conroy found. How little by little by little he built a case over what did he take him for? About four years to actually put this case together and how it's, in my opinion, one of the most important animal cruelty cases as far as the legal system works here in Ohio. On our next episode, the Rabbit Hole, we are going to start discussing with Officer Jim Conroy, how he started this investigation and where it took him to. So make sure to listen and as always, thank you for listening and thank you for caring.