The Baker City man who abandoned his five dogs in the snowy mountains southwest of Baker City in late April pleaded guilty in Baker County Justice Court and will pay a $1,000 fine and serve 40 hours of community service.

Joseph Wallace Berkheimer, 29, told Justice of the Peace Brent Kerns that he is “deeply ashamed” and “deeply sorry for what I did.”

“I spend every day regretting,” Berkheimer said during a hearing in Justice Court Friday morning, June 14.

Kerns said the maximum fine for the violations to which Berkheimer pleaded guilty is $2,000.

Kerns asked Berkheimer if he was willing to substitute 40 hours of community service for half of the fine.

Berkheimer agreed to do so.

Kerns gave Berkheimer eight months to complete the community service, and encouraged Berkheimer to help an animal rescue organization if possible.

All five of the dogs, named Buttercup, Blossom, Cowgirl, Frances and Jeff, were rescued from the Tipton Summit area along Highway 7 about 40 miles southwest of Baker City.

Following the sentencing, Berkheimer apologized to Dick Haines, who spent several days searching for two of the dogs after a local couple had rescued the three other dogs on May 1.

Kerns said the county would distribute the $1,000 fine to New Hope for Eastern Oregon Animals, a dog rescue group that Haines works with.

Kerns told Berkheimer that Haines and others spent 57 hours, and drove 851 miles, during the rescue effort.

Veterinarian bills totaled $1,000, Kerns said.

Following the sentencing, Haines said his goal was to ensure that Berkheimer was “accountable” for his actions. Haines said he believes the punishment is “reasonable.”

He said he told Berkheimer that abandoning animals in, say, Baker City, is quite different from what he did, leaving the five dogs in the mountains when there was snow on the ground and cold, wet weather ongoing. The situation, Haines said after the hearing, was “very tenuous.”

During the sentencing, Kerns asked Berkheimer how he had come to have five dogs, and whether he had tried to find homes for them.

Berkheimer said he had one female dog and one male, and that the the female went into heat one day before the male dog was scheduled to be neutered.

The dogs mated, and the puppies that were born are the dogs that he abandoned.

Berkheimer told Kerns that he offered the dogs for adoption on Facebook and also talked with shelters in La Grande, Ontario, Pendleton and Portland. Berkheimer said none had immediate openings, and they required immunizations for the dogs and other fees that he couldn’t afford.

Berkheimer told Kerns that not long before he abandoned the dogs, his wife had left him.

“I wasn’t in my right mind when I made that decision” to leave the dogs, Berkheimer said.

Kerns told Berkheimer that his goal, in assessing the fine and community service, was to hold him accountable.

“Mostly I want to make sure you learn you can’t do this,” Kerns said.

He asked Berkheimer whether he has a dog now.

Berkheimer said he has the male that sired the puppies, and that the dog is neutered.

Charged with violations rather than misdemeanors

Greg Baxter, Baker County district attorney, said he intended to prosecute Berkheimer in Baker County Circuit Court on five counts of animal abandonment, a Class B misdemeanor.

The charges were listed as misdemeanors in a document that Michael Spaulding, chief deputy district attorney, filed June 5.

Baxter said that on that morning he went to Justice Court to deal with Berkheimer’s charges as well as several other cases.

He said when he finished the other cases and asked about Berkheimer, he was told that Berkheimer had pleaded guilty to violations before Baxter had arrived.

Baxter said a clerical error in Justice Court led to the charges against Berkheimer being listed as violations rather than as misdemeanors.

Once Berkheimer pleaded guilty on June 5, he could not be prosecuted for the same charges in Circuit Court, since the constitutional protection against double jeopardy would apply, Baxter said.

That prompted Spaulding to file a motion in Circuit Court on June 10 dismissing the original misdemeanor charges.

Baxter said on the morning of June 14, after Berkheimer was sentenced in Justice Court, that he preferred to charge Berkheimer with misdemeanors because a conviction would have been on his permanent record.

A misdemeanor also carries the possibility of jail time, although Baxter said he doesn’t know whether he would have sought that punishment had Berkheimer been convicted.

Kerns said during the hearing that the maximum fine for a misdemeanor is $2,500, or $500 more than the maximum for the violations to which Berkheimer pleaded guilty.

Baxter said he also likely would have sought, had Berkheimer been convicted of a misdemeanor, to prohibit him from owning a dog during a probationary period.