Brett Anthony Bellera, the 25-year-old son of Amy Fisher, was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after his cat Reaper was found burned inside a Fort Lauderdale apartment in December 2024. Jennifer Armenti, 36, was charged in the same case.
A friend reported Reaper’s death to Broward County Animal Care on December 15, 2024. A forensic necropsy by the American Society for the Prevention of the Animal Care found the cat died from involuntary heat exposure, while police and animal care records point to a burned body discovered after the initial report.
Broward County Animal Care report
Bellera is Amy Fisher’s eldest child with Louis Bellera. Fisher, known as the Long Island Lolita, is 51 and lives on Long Island after the 1992 shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco, a case that kept her name in the public record for decades.
Police said Armenti claimed she found the cat dead on the bathroom floor. Animal care workers later found Reaper’s body on the back patio inside a laundry basket, a detail that widened the gap between the first account and the later discovery.
Reaper in Fort Lauderdale in December
The necropsy findings give the case its legal weight: involuntary heat exposure is not the same as an ordinary pet death and fits the aggravated animal cruelty charge now facing Bellera and Armenti. The public record does not identify the exact source of the burns.
For the case to move beyond the charging stage, prosecutors will have to carry the necropsy findings, the different location of the body, and the statements attributed to Armenti into the next court step. The unresolved point is the same one left by the forensic review: what exactly produced the fatal heat exposure.
