A struggling New York soap opera actor was found dead in his apartment days after putting down his dog.

Nick Santino was discovered by police in his Upper West Side bedroom on his 47th birthday. Neighbours said he was devastated that he had to put down his pit bull after his building enforced harsh new laws against the breed.

He euthanized his dog Rocco on Tuesday. In a suicide note, he wrote: ‘Today I betrayed my best friend. Rocco trusted me and I failed him. He didn’t deserve this.’

His apartment building, only steps away from the world-renowned Lincoln Centre, announced a strict new law in 2010 banning pit bulls from the building.

While the law didn’t apply to those who already had those dogs, those who knew Santino said he was harassed and received multiple complaints about his pet, the New York Post reports.
Santino was then threatened with a $250 fine for having a barking dog, neighbors said.

‘It was open season on him,’ neighbour Kevan Cleary, 63, said.

The man, raised in an orphanage and foster homes, soon began to write about his pet on Facebook, writing, “I did not rescue Rocco, Rocco rescued me.”