A Tavares man was arrested on an aggravated animal cruelty charge after video showed him drowning a raccoon in a cage, deputies said.

  • James Franklin Miller of Tavares charged with animal cruelty
  • Neighbor reported seeing him submerge caged raccoon for 6 minutes
  • 'We had a raccoon problem earlier,' deputies said wife told them

A neighbor said she saw Miller carry a cage with a raccoon inside onto a pontoon boat at about 8:40 a.m.

He then dropped the cage into the water and left it there for about 6 minutes, a Sheriff's Office affidavit said.

The woman said she confronted him about it, saying what he was doing was inhumane and that he could have just called animal control. She said Miller told her that the raccoon was in his house, and he refused to take the cage out of the water.

The woman told Miller that she recorded video of when the cage and raccoon went into the water and when it was taken out with the animal dead inside.

Deputies asked Miller's wife about it, who said they "had a raccoon problem earlier in the day" that had killed some of their chickens.

Miller's bond was set at $5,000.