Virginia Man Having Sex With His Dogs Sentenced For Bestiality

A Virginia man, who was convicted Wednesday of having sex with and abusing at least some of his eight Rottweiler dogs, has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for what Henrico Circuit Judge James Stephen Yoffy called “absolutely despicable” acts. The man is only allowed to leave prison to go to work, reports said.

Stephen Taylor, 31, reportedly admitted to a police officer that he had allegedly performed oral sex on one of the dogs. Judge Yoffy declared “these acts were really despicable acts, absolutely despicable,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Taylor entered what is called an Alford plea to a felony charge, which keeps him from legally admitting guilt but states that the evidence against him is sufficient for a conviction. However, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor animal cruelty in August, the station WTVR reported.

Taylor was convicted in August on two counts of animal cruelty — a felony charge and a misdemeanor charge.

Police said they found a total of 171 images of bestiality, which also included ten images that allegedly showed Taylor performing oral sex on one of the dogs, county attorney Nael Abouzaki said in court, according to reports.

“I just don’t have any words,” Judge Yoffy said of the graphic nature of the case. “This is disgusting,” he added.

Initially, Taylor pushed back on the allegations, called the charges "lies" and said the person in the photograph was not him but someone else, however he changed tracks when he appeared in court Wednesday before Judge Yoffy.

Taylor's roommate Craig Knox, 35, had been arrested in 2016 after he was accused of taking part in a child sex ring that involved the alleged rape of a 9-year-old boy in 2010. Knox also admitted that he knew Taylor and that he was having sex with dogs.

The judge declared that Taylor should not have contact with animals and also ordered him to undergo a psychosexual evaluation. Taylor could have received a maximum of six years in prison, but he got off relatively lightly.

“It's appalling to me. Just appalling,” a neighbor told NBC-affiliate WWBT after Knox’s and Taylor’s arrests. “When I talked to (Taylor), he said he was going out to his mom and dad's for a while because he was so upset. Then a week later, I'm watching the news and I see him on the TV and I just freaked.”

Taylor told the court Wednesday that he was remorseful about his acts in the past and had been “going down a very wrong path,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

There have been similar incidents earlier, cases of people having sex with their dogs. In September, a 17-year-old boy in Ohio was arrested on bestiality charges for engaging in sexual acts with the family's dog. A couple in New York was also caught on camera in August performing lewd acts with their pet dog and they faced up to a year behind bars for sexual misconduct.