COITSVILLE — Animal Charity of Ohio has filed a new search warrant related to an investigation in Coitsville Township.

The affidavit, filed Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and signed by Judge John Durkin, asserts that humane agents believe they will find evidence of dog-fighting operations, including the bodies of deceased animals buried on the property.

The house at 502 Coitsville-Hubbard Road was raided on June 25 and six dogs were taken from the dilapidated building.

At the time, few details were known about what happened that day. The search warrant filed Monday explains in much greater depth what led humane agents to the home and what they discovered there.

Above all, it appears Animal Charity believes the house was being used to store pit bulls involved in a dog-fighting operation.

“Several of the dogs had old wounds, including scarring on their muzzles, heads and faces, that would be consistent with ongoing dog fights. From my training and experience, I know that the breed of the dogs (pit bull), in combination with the coloring and musculature of these dogs, are consistent with dogs that would be highly desirable for use by dog fighters,” wrote Humane Agent Ashley Maldonado, who filed the affidavit.

On June 23, Maldonado reported, she received an anonymous complaint from a resident, stating that dogs were being kept in the house in abhorrent conditions. A day later, Campbell Police Officer Jim Conroy — who often handles animal welfare and abuse cases in the city and county — forwarded evidence to Maldonado provided by the same resident.

That video and photograph evidence, taken when the person entered the house to bring the dogs food and water, showed several pit bulls in the house, including two confined in wire crates with little or no apparent access to food or water. The house was shown to be in a state of severe structural deterioration, including collapsing ceilings and major water damage. Floors throughout the home were covered with straw mixed with feces as deep as one foot high. The resident described an overwhelming odor of urine and ammonia — which Maldonado later described herself as so severe that it “badly burned” her throat and nasal passages when she entered the home.

The resident reporting the situation stated that the house was located on abandoned farm property and that no person had been seen there “for quite some time.”

The affidavit states that on June 25, that resident reentered the home and reported that conditions had worsened, taking more photographs. The same day, city of Youngstown code enforcement contacted the Humane Society, the property was red-tagged, and Maldonado and other authorities entered the home and observed the conditions firsthand. They also seized six dogs from the house.

Maldonado wrote that before arriving, she was notified by a code enforcement officer that the owner of the house, Dr. Robert Maro, was there and told police he had been renting to Stanley T. Jones. The Mahoning County Auditor’s website also lists Maro as the registered owner of the property. He allegedly told police that Jones was supposed to have been out earlier that week and taken the dogs with him. Maro gave authorities permission to enter the property.

Maro is the brother of Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn Maro. A spokesman for the office stated that Prosecutor Maro has no comment and her office will not be involved with the case because it presents a conflict of interest.

While at the house, Maldonado stated, a man in a pickup truck pulled up and said he knew Jones, and that he had been taking Jones to the house to bring water to the dogs for about two years. He stated that he had never entered the house. The man then got Jones on the phone and Maldonado informed Jones that the animals were being seized.

The affidavit states Jones told her he loved the dogs and there was no need to seize them. He told Maldonado he would come to Animal Charity later that day but he never did.

Jones pleaded guilty to animal cruelty in Niles Municipal Court in 2023 after an emaciated German shepherd was found abandoned in a garage on his property. He served 10 days in jail and was ordered not to keep any companion animals. He also was convicted of dog fighting, a fourth-degree felony, in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in 2002, and sentenced to 18 months in the Lorain Correctional Institution.

Court records show that Jones has not yet been charged with any specific crimes related to this investigation.

In the house on June 25, Maldonado recorded that the animals were kept with no access to clean drinking water; little or no nutritional food; overgrown nails; hair loss; urine burns on paws, abdomen and genital areas; numerous old scars and wounds, skin irritation and dirty coats. Veterinary tests later showed that at least two of the animals suffered from extreme dehydration.

The affidavit also describes buckets containing dirty, non-potable water, crates packed with feces- and urine-soaked straw several inches deep, carpets saturated with urine, large piles of fresh and old feces throughout the home, bedrooms containing destroyed mattresses and deteriorated flooring and ceilings. One dog was visible from the first floor in a second-floor bedroom because of a hole in the ceiling.

Based on everything she observed there that day, Maldonado wrote the search warrant request to obtain evidence that may prove animal cruelty, animal neglect and dog fighting. The warrant gives Animal Charity the authority to seize animals, biological evidence, veterinary records, ownership documents, electronic devices, photographs and any other evidence related to those offenses.

The inventory attached to the warrant lists 33 pieces of evidence, including what Maldonado describes as tell-tale indicators of dog fighting.

“There were several items in the home consistent with use in a dog fighting operation, including (four) bite stick(s) (used to separate fighting dogs), soap (used to slick dogs or prepare them for ‘show’), and powder used to treat wounds,” she wrote.

The first item listed in the litany of evidence Maldonado stated she expects to find on the property is: “animals, whether living, deceased or unborn, both above and below ground.”