Speciale's attorney, Susan Chana Lask, disputed the hate crime charge, saying, "There are no facts whatsoever supporting a hate crime. Penal law 240.30-3 requires physical contact or threatening it. The prosecutor is wrongfully proceeding as a hate crime because he wants to make a dog and pony show out of this, as the claims are only that she was following an Amish man around and she said “Amish Puppy Mill”. That’s not a hate crime. If it was, the entire staff of the Humane Society of the United States would be in prison. It’s pretty hypocritical, by the way, for the prosecutor to constantly refer to the man with the puppies as the “Amish” while complaining that Christie can’t use the word “Amish Puppy Mill."