Former head of Boulder City’s animal shelter receives 90-day jail sentence

The former head of Boulder City’s animal shelter was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail for needlessly euthanizing her own dog.

Mary Jo Frazier pleaded guilty in October to a felony charge of animal cruelty after admitting she killed her dachshund. She previously denied allegations that she euthanized animals for fun at the shelter.

At Tuesday’s hearing, District Judge Susan Johnson also sentenced Frazier to four years of probation.

“This is a very sad situation for me,” Johnson said.

“Me, as well,” Frazier said.

Frazier’s attorney, Adam Solinger, said Frazier euthanized her dog, Oscar, out of a desire to keep him from additional suffering.

Solinger cited Frazier’s impending move to California and her belief that Oscar would be euthanized, because of his behavioral issues, if given up for adoption.

“She had to make a difficult choice,” Solinger said. “Did she want to put Oscar down? Or did she want to take the risk that someone would possibly beat and abuse him or worse?”

The lawyer denied a claim that Oscar’s killing was a revenge move on Frazier’s part to punish her ex-husband after their divorce.

Frazier was an employee of the Boulder City shelter from 1996 to 2015, when Police Chief Bill Conger ordered an investigation into allegations of excessive euthanizations at the shelter.

The allegations included missing drugs and money, but Conger asked the investigator to drop the case.

Conger used the findings, indicating that Frazier had been killing animals without cause for years, to force her to retire.

But after the case was sent to the Clark County district attorney in January 2016 for review, Conger himself quickly resigned.

Witness testimony included animal control officer and now Boulder City shelter head Ann Inabnitt, who was named Boulder City’s employee of the year in 2015 for blowing the whistle on Frazier’s conduct.

Among other cases, Inabnitt detailed the callous manner in which Frazier killed Oscar, the dachshund she owned with her husband.

Frazier, 62, has been living in Grants Pass, Oregon, after retiring from the Boulder City police force in 2015 and remarrying.

“My heart is broken over all of this,” Frazier told the judge on Tuesday. “This has been the worst year of my entire life.”

Speaking in a soft voice prior to her sentencing, she apologized for her actions.

Contact Brooke Wanser at bwanser@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Bwanser_LVRJ on Twitter.