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CROWN POINT | A man with a history of sexually abusing animals has been charged again — this time in Lake County — with sexually abusing a guinea fowl at Buckley Homestead County Park in Lowell.

Michael C. Bessigano, 42, was arrested Friday at his current home in New Chicago on charges of bestiality, killing a domestic animal, and torturing or mutilating a vertebrate animal — all felony charges.

According to the Lake County Sheriff's Department, Bessigano rode a bicycle to Buckley Homestead on Nov. 13, entered a building where guinea fowl were being housed and sexually assaulted one of the birds, killing it in the process.

Police said Bessigano tried to hide the dead bird in a nearby trash barrel. Employees at Buckley Homestead reported the killing, police said.

Not long after the assault, Lake County police served a search warrant at Bessigano's home at that time in Lowell and recovered feathers from the guinea fowl, police said. The date of that search was not available Friday night.

DNA testing showed the feathers at Bessigano's home matched the bird found dead in the Buckley Homestead trash barrel, according to police.