Former Black Ink Crew New York star Ceaser Emanuel is facing animal cruelty charges after a video showing him hitting a dog with a chair surfaced online last month.
Emanuel was charged on July 9 with two counts of animal cruelty and one count of aggravated cruelty to animals jail records, obtained by PEOPLE, show.
The tattoo shop owner, 43, was briefly incarcerated but released that same day, records show.
“Ceaser willing turned himself in and was released the same day on July 9th from the Fulton County Police Department,” a representative for Emanuel told The Shade Room. “His legal team is fully cooperating with the Fulton County Police department to bring him justice for this incident. As we stated previously the dogs are in a great space, safe and healthy.”
The City of South Fulton Police Department and Emanuel’s lawyer did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.
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Last month, Emanuel was fired from the hit VH1 reality series after the footage of him went viral.
The clip was from a Ring camera and shows the tattoo shop owner striking a canine with a folding chair multiple times, as well as locking the dog in a cage, and pushing it down a hill.
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“We have made the decision to cut ties with Ceaser Emanuel from Black Ink Crew New York,” VH1 wrote in a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday. “Since next season was close to finishing production, this decision will not impact the upcoming season.”
Emanuel’s lawyer, Walter Mosley, did not dispute it was his client in the video but told PEOPLE at the time that it was an old video and Emanuel was stopping some aggressive dogs from attacking other animals.
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“Ceaser is an avid dog lover and has many dogs and has had in his lifetime, many dogs and other pets,” Mosley told PEOPLE. “This was an unfortunate situation as I understand it, where there were a number of other aggressive dogs attacking smaller dogs and probably was a lapse of judgment as to how to appropriately break it up, break up that interaction.”
“In some ways, what was not seen in that video, was him protecting the smaller dogs, he just likely didn’t do this in the best way, so he’s seeking assistance and help to make sure that as a dog owner, he’s properly managing it, and understands how to interact in more healthy ways with all types of dogs and all of his dogs, but this is certainly a situation that he had addressed a long time ago,” the lawyer added.
“It’s unfortunate that a video that’s probably almost a year old or older surfaced and created such a disruption. It’s something that we’ve addressed and been addressing for some time.”
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Black Ink Crew New York, which follows the day-to-day drama at a Black-owned and operated tattoo shop in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, first premiered on VH1 in 2013, and has been on the air for nine seasons total.
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