Sarah Smolak loses second bid for diversionary program in animal cruelty cases
Sarah Smolak, 29, will have to head to trial or take a plea offer after a second judge denied her application to the supervised diversionary program. SDP is for defendants with mental health issues and allows those eligible to have the cases dropped.
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A woman facing 42 counts of animal cruelty out of Winsted and Norwalk, along with other related charges, will not have any of her cases dismissed.
On Tuesday, a judge in Stamford Superior Court denied Sarah Smolak’s application to the supervised diversionary program for her Norwalk cases. It came just days after a judge in Torrington Superior Court ruled the same for her Winsted cases. SDP is a pre-trial program that’s monitored by probation services and is for defendants with mental health conditions. It allows those who are eligible to avoid a conviction and have their charges dropped. Instead, Smolak, 29, will have to head to trial or take a plea offer that’s expected to include jail time.
Stamford Superior Court Judge Gary White heard from both sides before he made his decision Tuesday afternoon.
President of Paws and Hooves Animal Rescue Alicia Curci said that in 2024, she placed eight dogs with Smolak in Norwalk for short-term boarding and got a call soon after that three had died.
“The three deceased dogs were emaciated with sunken in heads. One was covered in frost bite as if they had been washed and placed in the freezer,” Curci told the judge, adding that the surviving animals were dirty, covered in urine and feces, severely underweight and drank water, “as if they’d been deprived for a long time.”
Smolak is accused of abusing and neglecting multiple dogs she was paid to foster, train and board in 2024. At the time, she was renting a home on Cedar Street in Norwalk. Police said she caused over $100,000 worth of damage due to her mistreatment of the animals and stole the home’s washing machine and lawn furniture before moving to Winsted in February 2025. The landlords told the judge the dogs tried to chew or scratch their way out of locked closets, bathrooms and the attic, and the home was filled with urine and feces.
“The actual abatement company came in and had to take out several hundred pounds of feces. Right out of the start people were wearing hazmat suits and respirators for weeks in the beginning,” said Kevin Gillespie.
“I strive to live a life grounded in compassion and hope, and I trusted this person and she calculated and deceived me and all these people here and hurt helpless animals which destroys me the most,” explained Gillespie’s wife, Heather Dennis.
Judge White took a break to read letters submitted by Smolak’s supporters in favor of SDP. When court resumed, Smolak's attorney argued on his client’s behalf.
“She's had a lifelong passion for animals,” said James Saraceni, adding that many of the animals involved were at risk of being euthanized and his client took them in to prevent that. “So, if somebody asked, she would accept. Now, that's where the issue of her mental disease or disability comes in—where her ability to say no, her need to try to save as many animals as she could was affected by her mental condition.”
Saraceni also told the judge Smolak is five months pregnant and asked he grant the program so she can get out of jail to have her baby.
White, however, pointed out SDP comes with rules, and Smolak is in custody for not following the one condition of her bond release: no animals. He also said the allegations were too numerous and serious to grant the program, echoing last week’s ruling from Judge Brian Preleski in Torrington Superior Court.
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