Who is Jeffrey Previte? CEO caught on camera yanking puppy by neck and slapping it hard at his Santa Monica condo
The CEO of an environmental consulting firm in LA was caught on video brutally attacking his four-month-old puppy in a luxury condominium building. 46-year-old Jeffrey Previte was caught on surveillance cameras at his apartment in the Seychelle Condominiums building in Santa Monica, California, mercilessly thrashing his pup Beachy and grabbing the whimpering pooch by the throat, the Daily Mail reported.
Previte can be seen in the August 22 footage yanking the poor canine off the floor by the scruff of its neck, brutally jerking the animal through a door, and giving it a hard knock. Speaking to the British newspaper on condition of anonymity, a concierge who works at the lavish property said he heard the dog's cries from the building's front desk and later filed a report about the incident. You can watch the video here.
"I heard the dog screaming and when I looked on the camera, I saw him beating the dog," the concierge said, adding that he subsequently filed a report with the building's management and told the CEO he had footage of what he did to the dog. "He became irate... and then he hung up on me," the man continued. "He apologized the next day, but I didn't think it was a sincere apology." In his report, the concierge explicitly wrote that he "witnessed Jeffery [sic] Previte beating his dog" at 6.55 pm that evening.
In a statement to Daily Mail, however, Previte claimed the concierge was trying to extort him. "I think this is very unfortunate that this has come across your desk," he wrote. "I don't even know exactly what to say but I will say this: [The concierge] called me the evening of this interaction with my dog and that was at nine o'clock at night and he attempted to extort money from me so that he wouldn't report it to the building."
"There's nothing illegal about what I did — I said if you need to tell the building, tell the building. The building manager took it very seriously. I find it very unfortunate that we are even talking about this," Previte added.
Meanwhile, the concierge told the outlet what he saw on the security screen. "He was very angry. He was choking and slapping the dog," he said. "He even slammed the poor dog against the wall."
The concierge also added that his report was not taken seriously by his superiors. "My boss laughed in my face," he said. "I took the next day off work. I just felt that they should have called the police at least."
What we know about Jeffrey Previte
Previte was reportedly appointed joint CEO of EBI Consulting, an environmental risk and compliance management consultancy firm, just last week. Meanwhile, he is also the vice-chairman of the board of directors at the company — which reportedly employs at least 400 people across the United States and Canada. "Jeff has built its telecommunications consulting business to be the market leader in delivering environmental and engineering consulting to the wireless industry," per Previte's company bio. He has no kids and has lived in the building for nearly five years, the concierge said.
"He dates strange women that come in and out," the concierge said of Previte. "He wears a Make America Great Again hat and he rides bikes. He's hardly there — he goes back and forth to Boston. He is probably only there once every two months. You hardly see him. He drives fancy cars and he is in and out."
In a statement to Daily Mail, the building management said that "the apparent conduct of the unit owner was abhorrent and completely unacceptable. Building management stands behind our employees and we took swift action including contacting animal control and directing the resident to cease all contact with our employee. We continue to evaluate other measures that can be taken with our counsel."