Sheriff’s office investigating after retired Liberty County K-9 surrendered to animal shelter

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    LIBERTY COUNTY, Georgia (WJCL) — An investigation is underway after a retired Liberty County K-9 was brought to an animal shelter.

According to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office, the retired K-9, Kona, was surrendered to the Liberty County Animal Shelter on April 29 by Deputy Trevon Tolson.

“Sheriff (William) Bowman would not agree to, and had no prior knowledge of, the retired canine being treated in this manner,” read a statement from the sheriff’s office. “The well-being and proper care of all canines, both active and retired, is of the utmost importance to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office, and any allegations of mistreatment or neglect are taken very seriously.”

Tolson has been reassigned to the patrol division and his current K-9 was reassigned to a different handler, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Back in March 2021, the sheriff’s office announced Kona had joined the department as its latest K-9. Kona was retired and released to Tolson on Dec. 20, 2023.

Kona was adopted by a previous handler one day after she was surrendered to the shelter.

The news of this investigation follows another investigation into the K-9 unit which began on March 21.

According to the LCSO, Sheriff Bowman was informed that Lt. Corey Nadeau and Sgt. David Abbgy, the supervisors of the K-9 Division, forged training documents to recertify the sheriff’s office canines.

Both resigned prior to the investigation being completed.

The GBI is now investigating and LCSO said criminal charges are possible.

WJCL 22 News spoke with Abbgy. He said the training certification issue was an honest mistake, not one done out of malice.

“It was a mistake that me and my Lieutenant made trusting that instructor, and I was tired. The instructor was tired. You know, it was something we hadn’t done before, but we trusted that instructor that he had seen what our dogs had done. We did a mock training or a mock certification the Wednesday before, and all the dogs passed with flying colors. We were never told ‘Don’t tell anybody.’ It was nothing that we thought was criminal. There were never any integrity issues. We told everything just how it happened,” he said. “We thought we were doing the right thing and unfortunately, we paid for it.”

Abbgy said he cares a lot about the K-9’s at the Sheriff’s Office. He said he is one of the people who made calls when Kona was brought to Animal Control.

“We were jumping through hoops, trying to figure out how we could get her out of there,” he said.

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