Ex-University at Buffalo football players face jail time over alleged beating of mini poodle with leather belt

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Two former University at Buffalo football players are facing jail time after they allegedly beat a dog using a leather belt over "damage" the animal caused to a couch belonging to one of the players, officials and prosecutors in New York said. 

Blake Hiligh, 19, and Zachary Pilarcek, 20, were arraigned in an Amherst Town Court on Thursday and charged with one count of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals with a failure to provide proper sustenance after an investigation linked the two football players to a June 14 incident where a 4-year-old male miniature poodle named "Kobe" was videoed being beaten. 

A football is shown on the turf during the University at Buffalo Spring Game on April 30, 2022, at UB Stadium in Amherst, New York. (Joshua Bessex/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

SPCA Chief Communications Officer Gina Lattuca said in a statement that an anonymous email was sent to the organization's Animal Cruelty Investigations Department just before midnight on June 13 and contained a video of the alleged animal abuse. 

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"In the video one man, Pilarcek, a native of Endicott, New York, is speaking off-camera about damage a dog did to a couch in a Sweet Home Road apartment he shares with the dog’s owner, Hiligh, a native of Maryland, and claims he will film the punishment the dog will receive," the press release read. 

According to Lattuca, the video was posted to Snapchat and showed Hiligh "yelling" at the dog and beating him with "what appears to be a leather belt." 

The SPCA investigator then contacted the