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Brooklyn-born actor Nick Santino committed suicide Wednesday, The New York Post reports.
The soap opera star was wracked with grief after his beloved pit bull Rocco was euthanized Tuesday – the same day Santino turned 47.
“Today I betrayed my best friend and put down my best friend” – Santino wrote in a suicide note, according to close friend Stuart Sarnoff. “Rocco trusted me and I failed him. He didn’t deserve this.”
The actor (who appeared on seven episodes of “All My Children” and six episodes of “Guiding Light”) had been feeling “harassed” by his building management company, according to his neighbor Lia Pettigrew.
He was allegedly threatened with a $250 fine for having a barking dog, but according to neighbor Kevan Cleary: “the dog was not a barker, but somebody complained that the dog would bark.”
Santino phoned a former girlfriend at 2 a.m. Wednesday. Police found Santino’s body in his bedroom later that afternoon. The actor had overdosed on pills.
The actor’s pet Rocco has been cremated. Friends tell The New York Post Santino’s remains will also be cremated.

Nick Santino.

A struggling soap opera actor named Nick Santino killed himself this week after euthanizing his beloved dog.
On Wednesday, police discovered Santino, dead of a deliberate drug overdose, only hours after the devastated actor put his pit bull Rocco to sleep.
“Today I betrayed my best friend and put down my best friend” – Santino wrote in his suicide note. “Rocco trusted me and I failed him. He didn’t deserve this.”
It appears that Santino felt he had no option but to euthanize the pit bull amid complaints from his Manhattan apartment building, which banned the breed but had allowed Rocco to stay under a set of strict rules.
The upsetting story was first reported by the New York Post.
According to the newspaper, Santino (who made appearances on shows including “All My Children” and “Guiding Light”) adopted Rocco from a shelter several years ago.
In recent months, the depressed actor reportedly felt more and more pressure from his building’s management and neighbors to get rid of the pit bull.
It’s not entirely clear why Santino felt euthanizing Rocco was his only choice, but he did so on Tuesday, which happened to be the actor’s 47th birthday.
Santino then ended his own life.
The remains of both pet and owner are to be cremated.

A member of the condo board that soap actor Nick Santino said pressured him to euthanize his pit bull — a “betrayal” that drove him to suicide — refused to accept any responsibility for the double tragedy yesterday.
“I’m sorry the man is dead” – board member Marilyn Fireman barked to The Post, “But it has nothing to do with the pet policy.”
“You just assumed that [his suicide] was a result of a board’s decision” – Fireman said, even though Santino routinely griped about the building’s anti-dog policies.
Heartbroken relatives of the actor have retrieved the ashes of Rocco and plan to place them beside Santino’s body when he is laid to rest.
The healthy, 5-year-old dog was put to sleep Tuesday on Santino’s 47th birthday. A few hours later, he killed himself in an apparent pill overdose.
“They’ll be buried together” – his grieving sister Catherine Schmidt sobbed.
She said the family has held off making funeral arrangements until the cremated dog comes home.
“I knew his dog was important to him” – she cried. “The dog was abused and he saved him.”
Schmidt said Rocco was anything but dangerous, describing him as “mushy, sappy and lovable.”
The two went everywhere together.
“The dog came with him one Thanksgiving” – she recalled.
Santino blamed the condo board at One Lincoln Plaza for his decision to put Rocco to sleep — saying the members waged a campaign of harassment against him and dog owners in the building.
The actor left behind a grief-stricken note, a friend said, saying that he “betrayed his best friend.”
“Rocco trusted me and I failed him” – he wrote. “He didn’t deserve this.”
The board began its war against canines in 2010, enacting a series of oppressive rules.
Dogs were forbidden from riding in the main elevator or from being left alone in apartments for more than nine hours.
Breeds like Rocco (whom Santino adopted from a shelter) were outlawed, though he was grandfathered in.
But the troubled television star made no mention of the troubles with his building when he last spoke to family on Tuesday.
“He didn’t tell me anything about it” – she said. “He never discussed it with me.