Brooklyn pet owner claims groomer – arrested for animal cruelty in 2007 – killed her dog by carelessly turning collar into a noose

A Brooklyn woman claimed that a Bay Ridge dog groomer, who had previously been arrested for animal cruelty, killed her beloved 6-year-old cocker spaniel by carelessly turning the doomed pup's collar into a noose

Melissa Lee said she took her dog Reba to Fluff and Love Grooming on Fourth Avenue on Aug. 28 and dropped the animal off at 3 p.m. for a quick bath and paw cleaning.

“It shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes,” said Lee, 65, a retired city public school teacher who lives in the neighborhood.

But three hours later, she still hadn't heard from the groomer, so Lee called Fluff and Love but couldn't reach the owner, Bechir Bejaoui. Then Lee drove to the shop to pick up her dog.

Bejaoui said Reba had been put in a crate 90 minutes earlier and he needed more time to care for her because she had been urinating and defecating on herself, Lee recalled.

“I said, 'Where is she?' and I could see her in a little box in the back, but she wouldn't look at me in the face,” Lee said. “He didn't want me to get her, but I could hear her breathing funny.”

Lee opened the box, felt around Reba's neck and found a tightly fastened canvas collar.

“I couldn't get my hand between her neck and the collar to loosen it,” Lee recalled. “I turned her body toward me and thought her eyes were missing. They had rolled back in her head. It looked like she had big red tumors for eyes.”

She grabbed Reba and put her on the floor as another customer entered the store.

“The woman gasped” when she saw Reba's eyes, Lee said. “[Bechir] started yelling at me and saying, “I didn't do anything wrong.” He was so scared that I would blame him.”

Lee, along with her daughter Reeva Grammatikopoulos, rushed Reba to Bay Street Animal Hospital on Staten Island.

“When we got there, she was cyanotic and having trouble breathing,” Lee said. “They put her in an oxygen tank. They gave her steroids. They couldn't take her off the oxygen tank because every time they tried, she couldn't breathe on her own.”

Reba's heart finally gave up, her owner said.

“The only consolation for me is that she knew I had come to the store to pick her up. She knew I was there because she was wagging her tail and trying to look at me,” she said. “I lost a child that night.”

Lee, who has held two protests outside Bejaoui's store, said she believes Reba was strangled with the collar.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals now has Reba's body and will perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

A police spokesman said the New York Police Department's animal cruelty unit was investigating the incident, adding that no charges had been filed against Bejaoui.

Bejaoui did not respond to repeated calls seeking comment.

Since Reba's death, Fluff and Love Grooming's social media pages have been removed.

In 2007, while working as a dog groomer at Fins, Furs, 'n' Feathers, Bejaoui was arrested on animal cruelty charges related to the alleged mistreatment of a Burmese cat, records show.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office could not provide further information about the alleged crime, pointing out that the file was sealed.

In a message he sent to customers before Bejaoui deactivated his social media accounts, he accused Lee of bringing “her dying dog” into his establishment and insisted that the dog was “obviously still alive” when Lee left the establishment with her.

The “scheming” Lee, he said, had “slandered and defamed me and my company” and “hatched a plan to blackmail and defraud me.”

He also claims that Lee never paid for his services and that her claims are “falsehoods in her underhanded and despicable attempt to extort me and defraud my business.”

Grammatikopoulos, 41, said she will not rest until Bejaoui gives up his business and can no longer harm any other animal.

“He picked on the wrong dog,” she said.