A Levittown couple was arrested Friday after investigators for Child Protective Services, acting on a complaint about possible child neglect, discovered what they said were 21 “emaciated and malnourished dogs” in the house.
The Sheriff’s jail bus pulls up this morning to the Nassau County Courthouse.Photo byC.J. Teevan
Denton Gayle, 30, and Margaret Grover, 20, pleaded Not Guilty at their arraignments Saturday to 21 counts of animal abuse.
According to the DA’s office, CPS workers showed up January 24th at the Cape Cod house on Brook Lane for a welfare check on their 2-year-old. When CPS got inside, she said, they discovered the allegedly unfed dogs “on top of each other”.
CPS removed the toddler and placed the child in foster care, she said.
No word on what happened to the dogs.
As officials conducted their investigation inside the house Friday, Grover “pushed and shoved Police Officer Winter”, the DA Law Assistant told Judge Ignatius Muscarella. “Then she spat in his face,” trying “to avoid being put in handcuffs.”
Based on those allegations, Grover is also charged with harassment, a non-criminal violation.
But Grover’s lawyer argued that she did “what any mother would do” in that situation, imploring police to “show me the CPS order.” They ignored her.
The DA Law Asst. noted Gayle “was in this very courtroom yesterday,” a reference to his Felony arraignment January 23, 2025, on a single charge of mischief. Gayle also has a new case for contempt, allegedly committed on Saturday after his release on the dog charges. Another open case involves 10 charges of driving an un-registered, un-insured car without a license after a traffic stop last March.
The DA Law Asst. told Judge Muscarella that Gayle has a criminal history, with 2 Misdemeanor convictions, as she argued for “$20,000 bail and a stay-away order of protection for the child that was taken by CPS”.
Violating Section 353 of New York’s Agricultural Markets statute is a Misdemeanor with a potential prison sentence of 364 days for each of the 21 counts. Both defendants face additional Misdemeanor charges of obstructing government administration, failing to control a minor child and resisting arrest.
Screened for a public defender, Grover told the judge she works “part time”. She was assigned Garden City Criminal Defense Attorney James Polk to represent her. Gayle, who said he makes “$150 to $250 a week”, is represented by Nassau County Legal Aid.
They were both released with a new court date of February 5, 2025.
It’s not the first time the couple’s made headlines.
Last year, Gayle and Grover were described as “squatters” occuping a derelict house in New Hyde Park. Fighting eviction, they produced a lease purportedly signed by the homeowner, convincing the judge to let them continue living in the house with their baby.
But as that case unfolded, investigators turned up additional details about the “lease”, which turned out to be phony: The man whose signature was on that lease died in 2016; his son died two years later, according to accounts of that episode widely reported in the press: Porsche-driving Long Island squatters evicted by sheriff’s deputies. In one news report, Gayle appears in photographs with the family pet, a female pit bull.
Their legal relationship to owners of the house in Levittown where they allegedly lived with the dogs did not come up Saturday.
Margaret Grover and Denton Gayle leave the courthouse after their arraignments on Saturday.Photo byC.J. Teevan
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