PHOENIX (AP) -- A Glendale man is facing up to a year in prison in an animal cruelty case in which a 3-week-old puppy was soaked in cooking oil and fed to an 8-foot-long pet boa constrictor snake.

Joseph E. Beadle, 40, pleaded guilty to a charge of animal cruelty last month and is scheduled to be sentenced in Maricopa County Superior Court on Tuesday. In addition to the prison time, he also faces a $150,000 fine.

Beadle's phone number was not listed.

Police reports say Beadle fed the mix-breed puppy to the snake as two 15-year-old boys watched in June.

The boys saw the snake bite the puppy, coil around the dog and begin to suffocate it, said Kim Noetzel, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Humane Society.

"One of the boys said he could actually hear the bones breaking," she said.

The reports say that Beadle then removed the puppy from the snake's grasp and poured it in cooking oil so it would be "easier to swallow." It's unclear at what point the puppy died during the ordeal.

Investigators found that the snake was also a victim of neglect. Due to malnutrition, the red-tailed boa was several inches shorter then it should have been. The snake was removed from the home and is now in the care of the Arizona Herpetological Society.

Last week, the Humane Society of the United States released a list of the 100 worst cases of animal cruelty it saw in 2006. Three Arizona cases were on the list.

Noetzel said she thought the Beadle case "would be right up there."

"And what disturbs me even more," she said, "Is that is actually pretty average of what we see on almost a daily basis."

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Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com

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