DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — — Montgomery County is fighting a judge's order that up to 35 pit bulls confiscated in a dogfighting investigation be returned to their owners by Friday.

In court filings this week, the county sought to stop the release and one defendant urged that the dogs be freed.

On Friday, Judge Jeffrey Froelich of Montgomery County Common Pleas Court ruled that county prosecutors had failed to present "any rationale for its continued possession of the property."

The case involves Eric A. Lewis, 45, and Ennis P. Lungs, 41, both of Dayton, who face felony dogfighting charges after an October raid on a home and van on Boltin Street. In all, five men face charges in the case.

The county's Animal Resource Center has 59 pit bulls — 35 from Boltin Street — confiscated in a series of 2006 raids and earlier had euthanized a dozen that were deemed to be too dangerous.

Prosecutors concede the dogs taken from Boltin Street are no longer evidence and the county has not initiated forfeiture proceedings, according to Froelich's ruling. The dogs must be returned to their owners before 4 p.m. Friday "unless good cause is shown," he wrote.

In a motion filed Monday, the county argued for more time to present evidence and said the dogs might be removed from the state and that the dogs pose a grave danger to anyone who handles them.

Tuesday, Lungs' attorney, John H. Rion, asked Froelich to deny the county's motion.

"Once again the government attempts to blame someone else for its failures," Rion wrote. "Here, the government has unlawfully seized, unlawfully detained, and wrongfully kept property belonging to others, without due process of law.

"If anything, the government should pay the pet owners for denying them of their pets for these past five months," Rion said.

Froelich will hear oral arguments on the motions Friday.