31/05/2025
DeSantis signs animal cruelty bills, including statewide database
Marion County has long had an animal abuser database, known as ‘Molly’s Law,’ and local advocate Lilly Baron was on hand for the ceremony.
Posted May 28, 2025 | The News Service of Florida and Susan Smiley-Height, Ocala Gazette
Nobody was happier to be in Loxahatchee on May 28 than Lilly Baron of Marion County. Baron has long advocated for a statewide animal abuser registry. On Wednesday, she attended a ceremony during which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two bills focused on animal cruelty and directing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement by the start of next year to put a database on its website of people convicted of animal-cruelty offenses.
Part of the measure was in response to a dog found tied to a fence along Interstate 75 during last year’s Hurricane Milton.
“How someone treats an animal speaks volumes of their character,” Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner said during a bill-signing ceremony at Big Dog Ranch in Loxahatchee.
Named “Trooper’s Law,” one of the bills (SB 150) will create a third-degree felony offense of animal cruelty for people who restrain dogs outside during natural disasters. The bill is named after Trooper, a dog found by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper after being tied to a fence during the hurricane and later adopted.
The other measure, called “Dexter’s Law,” will increase aggravated animal-cruelty penalties if people intentionally torture domesticated animals. The bill (HB 255) also directs the Florida Department of Law Enforcement by the start of next year to put a database on its website of people convicted of animal-cruelty offenses. “Dexter’s Law” was proposed after a St. Petersburg man was accused of decapitating his newly adopted dog.
Marion County has for some time had an animal abuser database. It began after a dog named Molly was stabbed three times in the head and had her skull fractured with a baseball bat in early 2014. Her accused attacker, Steven Scott Fleming, served time in state prison on three counts of felony cruelty to animals.
The county’s animal abuser registry requires that any offender convicted of an animal abuse crime be placed on in the database, which allows citizens, pet sellers and rescue organizations to verify that they are not placing an animal with an animal abuser, according to the Marion County website.
Molly died in 2023, at the age 15. She had been adopted by Lilly Baron, director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Ocala, years earlier. Baron said 11 other Florida counties have similar registries, but anyone wanting to know if someone is listed would have to look through all 11 to gain information. She has long been a proponent of having a statewide database.
“If we can get a statewide registry, then it would be a much easier process to learn if someone has been adjudicated guilty of animal cruelty,” she noted in a prior “Gazette” article.
Via text on May 28, she wrote: “It’s great to see it’s finally a reality!”
To access the registry, go to animalservices.marionfl.org/animal-control/animal-control-and-pet-laws/animal-abuser-registry
To read one of numerous articles about Molly’s life, go to ocalagazette.com/remembering-molly
It was a year ago on Thursday that Molly, one of Marion County’s most beloved canines, passed away. The white mixed-breed dog, who survived life-threatening wounds after being attacked by a human, later became the ambassador for Marion County’s animal abuser registry, known as Molly’s Law. Mol...
