A black ex-con has been charged with beating his wife's small dog to death because it pooped in their apartment, authorities said

A law enforcement source said that Nashbert Smith repeatedly swung the dog by its leash against a wall, then choked it to death. Smith, 28, a registered sex offender, was ordered held on $10,000 bail. Diamond Smith told police that her husband found a pile of poop in their apartment and told her to come home. When she arrived, the man went berserk on her Jack Russell Terrier named Lady. "F---k the dog," he told his pleading wife, as he choked her pet to death, the source said. When cops arrived, they found the apartment hallway and kitchen splattered with blood. The dog was dead. Lady was taken to a local veterinary hospital, but she couldn't be saved. The pooch suffered internal bleeding and brain trauma. Smith was charged with felony aggravated cruelty to an animal. He faces 1 1/3 to four years in prison if convicted, said a spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan. State records show that Smith pleaded guilty in 2003 to a misdemeanor count of sexual misconduct with a girl under age 15 and was sentenced to nine months in jail. He was also required to register as a Level 2 sex offender.