The trial of one of two women charged in a serial dog-training scam that resulted in the death of a French bulldog owned by poker pro and coach Bart Hanson is slated to begin on Thursday, roughly a year since the dark episode occurred.
64-year-old Jacqueline Witt faces four counts of cruelty to animals and a fifth count of tampering or fabricating evidence. The four animal-cruelty counts are connected to four dogs who were rescued from Witt's home as investigators probed the bulldog's disappearance, while the fifth count, a felony, is directly related to the death of the Hanson's family dog, Charlie, who died under unusual circumstances last September.
Witt was charged last week with the offenses, which allegedly occurred at her Connecticut home. Witt's 28-year-old daughter, Josephine Ragland, who operated the business called Wagging Good, was also arrested and charged yesterday with the four counts of animal cruelty. Ragland had previously been charged with grand larceny and obstruction of justice in Massachusetts, where the Hansons live, after collecting the French bulldog in September 2023 for what was sold as a two-week training course costing $2,250. Both women are to be tried in Connecticut's Superior Court.
Instead, as Hanson was later to tragically uncover, his dog and others were all but abandoned, left in crates and without food and water for days at a time, while Ragland went on casino benders at Mohegan Sun with the money she took from unsuspecting customers.
Training services sold on online site
The Hansons began looking for a dog trainer to help the bulkily-built Charlie be more careful around their young son. They found the Wagging Good service on Thumbtack, where it had several five-star reviews that may have been fraudulent as well. The business's owner, 'Lily', who investigators contacted by Hanson later determined was Ragland, sold the Hansons on her training services. Ragland picked up Charlie from the Hansons' suburban Boston home on September 1, 2023, which would be the last time they saw their french bulldog.
What happened next was heartbreaking. For most of the two weeks, Ragland and Witt provided updates on Charlie's training progress, but it was all lies. Investigators later determined that Charlie had died on September 4 or 5 after being left crated in a sunroom for days without food or water. Ragland and Witt dumped Charlie's body about 35 miles away, at the edge of some woods adjacent to the Canterbury Turnpike, where it was later found. A subsequent necropsy exposed the maltreatment Charlie suffered before dying.
Meanwhile, Ragland and Witt offered multiple and widely varying stories as to what had happened to Charlie, including escaping an outdoor enclosure and being hit by a car, and eventually, something close to the truth, which was just dying while crated. At one point, the women even claimed that Charlie had been buried outside Witt's home, which also proved false.
Case led to resignation of Connecticut animal-welfare official
Hanson was quite public with his poker friends and his social-media fan base as the saga unfolded in late 2023. His purpose was twofold, including a warning to others to always look for signs that independent businesses advertised online might be fraudulent and could include faked reviews.
Hanson also vented his frustration at the Connecticut side of the two-state investigation, which went nowhere for months as officials dithered about which agency should handle the case. By December, with no updates, Hanson's story had received local coverage, and he'd offered an online diatribe about the situation, in which the case had been taken away from one of Connecticut's animal-cruelty officers and given to the the Connecticut State Police.
The animal-security officer involved later resigned over the matter, telling a local news station that it made little sense. Even though his agency had limited funding, he and other animal-cruelty officers had been specifically trained for matters such as this. Eventually, though, the CSP did move forward with the belated investigation, which led to the charges against Witt and Ragland just over a year after Charlie's mishandling and death occurred.
