BRICK, NJ — How did 180 animals come to be kept in a Brick Township home in conditions so bad that the house has been condemned?
And how did a person who seemed so committed to animal rescue become someone accused of animal cruelty?
Those are among the issues still being sorted out, both by law enforcement and by people who knew Aimee J. Lonczak and Michele Nycz, the two women who have been charged with animal cruelty and child endangerment in connection with the conditions at the Arrowhead Park Drive home.
Find out what’s happening in Brickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Lonczak, 49, and Nycz, 58, have been held at the Ocean County Jail in Toms River since they were arrested Friday night, after the discovery of what witnesses have described as horrific, uninhabitable conditions at the home.
They are scheduled for a detention hearing at 1:30 p.m. Thursday before Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan, said Brian Huntenburg, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. He said the prosecutor’s office will be seeking to have Lonczak and Nycz held until trial.
Find out what’s happening in Brickwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Neither woman has an attorney designated as of Monday afternoon, he said.
‘A one-woman show’
Lonczak is the president and director of Crazy Rescue Ladies Inc., and she and Nycz, who owns the Arrowhead Park Drive home, were operating the rescue from the home, according to records filed with the New Jersey Division of Consumer…
