Hidden cameras, undercover aliases and private investigators are tactics usually deployed to bust a drug-dealing ring or catch an escaped convict. In the case of the Guardians of Rescue, they’re used to help abused animals.
The Long Island-based group counts ex-military personnel, retired police detectives, carpenters, electricians and even former convicts among their unpaid volunteer ranks. Robert Misseri founded the group in 2010 to help with the cases that fall through the cracks of animal cruelty laws, and now it’s the focus of a six-episode Animal Planet series, “The Guardians,” premiering Saturday at 10 p.m.
“Generally you have very weak laws,” Misseri tells The Post, citing examples of dogs who are left chained, living in squalid conditions and even starving. “Chances are they’re not going to confiscate the dog. They’ll give a ticket, give a warning. Or their plate is so full they may never be able to get to that house.
“It was disturbing knowing that this was taking place and I needed to do something about it.”
The Guardians’ methods are unconventional and controversial. In the series premiere, several members run a sting, posing as interested buyers and using surveillance cameras to nab someone selling dogs from a puppy mill. In 2013, The Post reported on the group starting a program that put the city’s homeless population to work as animal-abuse whistleblowers and stray cat lookouts, rewarding them with food or clothing. Its director of investigations, Jack Garcia, is a former FBI agent who infiltrated the Gambino crime family.
In addition to Garcia, who handles larger cases, Misseri will commission volunteer online investigators and PIs for a few days of pro bono work. While other agencies might leave a 24-hour notice before seizing an endangered animal, for example, the Guardians spring into action immediately.
“When an animal is in danger, we don’t have time for search warrants and court orders,” he says. “We try to get to the [animal] owners or homeowners. There’s always somebody you can reach out to and that’s when we say, ‘What’s going on, what can we do?’ ”
Misseri, a 48-year-old with a stocky build and shaved head, isn’t a product of the nonprofit world. The Smithtown, LI, resident works a full-time catering job in Manhattan and never formally volunteered for any animal-rescue organizations before starting the Guardians. Growing up in Brooklyn, he always had pets — dogs, cats, fish, frogs, hamsters, even a squirrel — and as a teenager, he would bring home stray animals and try to find someone to adopt them.
“As far back as I remember, when my friends on the block would try to hurt the littlest creature, I would always be the first one to pull it away from them,” he says.
He decided to form the group after he heard about a homeowner on Long Island hoarding 21 pit bulls in 2010. While animal control was unable to do anything, Misseri convinced the owner to surrender all the dogs to him. While he initially struggled to find them overnight shelter, The Guardians now have a shelter partner in Long Island’s Save-A-Pet Rescue.
Today, the group receives requests from all over the country, sometimes as many as 150-200 per day between e-mails, phone calls and messages on the group’s Facebook page, which Misseri starts answering around 4:30 or 5 a.m. each day. The Guardians operate solely on donations, and many of their cases, especially ones outside the tri-state area, are solved through phone outreach — getting a pet owner to take a call and negotiating a solution. Sometimes there is travel, like in the case of rescue efforts following the Louisiana floods in August.
Misseri has built an eclectic group of about 10 core Guardians volunteers (eight of whom appear in the series). For example, Bill Hale is a retired NYPD detective with bulging biceps and sleeves of tattoos. Their resident veterinarian, Marvin “Moose” Baynes, rides with a motorcycle club and favors biker gear — like a spiked cuff, skull ring and a bandana tied over his long braids.
When my friends on the block would try to hurt the littlest creature, I would always be the first one to pull it away from them.
These volunteers are key to the group’s success. While Misseri says he can’t get most vets to make house calls, someone like Baynes, who grew up in inner-city Philadelphia and operates a mobile veterinary clinic in south Jersey, is a perfect fit for when an animal can’t be removed from a property.
“[I] look like somebody that’s from the same place that they’re from. I think it gets me a little further than some of the other members in certain situations,” says Baynes, 45, who joined the Guardians two years ago. “Especially in Philadelphia, [the neighborhoods] tend to be where I frequent with my bike club.
“Sometimes there are some pretty testy situations, but you try to be smart about it, use your instincts and know when to bail,” he adds.
Stephen “Face” Edghill, a 40-year-old audio-visual technician, joined the Guardians five years ago after meeting Misseri through a mutual friend. He’s been an animal lover since he was a kid growing up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, when he would watch Animal Planet with his father at night — but his nickname comes from his teenage years running with a troublemaker crowd, when he was told he had “too young a face to be running around on the streets.”
“The difference for our team is we’ve got street knowledge,” Edghill says. “We know how to talk to people, we’ve got the gift of gab. We know when a situation doesn’t look right and we have the connections if we need it.”
Often the Guardians may negotiate a trade, like in Saturday’s premiere episode, when Edghill and his partner offer to install a security system at a man’s auto garage in exchange for handing over the dog he’s been keeping there in foul conditions. And they’ll look the other way if there are illegal activities going on at the property.
“We let people know we’re not a police organization — we don’t have anything against police, but that’s not what we do,” he adds. “We’re just trying to rescue the animal and we let them know that’s why we’re there, we’re not trying to send them to jail.”
That’s not to say the group is in a turf war with the law — in fact, plenty of their tips come from cops, who may notice signs of animal abuse while responding to a call about another complaint and advise the Guardians to investigate further. Much of their work is outreach, rebuilding/insulating dilapidated dog houses or educating an owner of a dog with allergies about grain-free food — then following up to make sure they continue to feed it properly.
Such vigilance requires a significant time commitment, especially from Misseri, who admits it’s taken a toll on his relationship with his wife of 25 years (the couple has no children).
“It’s the worst thing for a family or a marriage, there’s no question,” he says. “There’s no vacations, no downtime. My weekends, I’m constantly out there doing something.”
The Guardians of Rescue is considered a passion project for its volunteers. Edghill says he’s taken unpaid days off work to help rescue animals — a topic that was never talked about growing up on the streets of Flatbush. He still tears up recalling when, as a teenager, his pet cat, Pepper, was killed when one of the neighborhood kids threw her at a Doberman pinscher.
With his background, he says people are surprised when they learn of his volunteer work, but with “The Guardians,” perhaps that will change.
“Now [with the show] we can bring something positive,” he says, “and let them know we’ve got guys in Brooklyn and urban areas that are doing something good, trying to save and rescue these animals and hopefully it can spread to the masses.”