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Omar Bradley
Animal rights advocates outraged about perceived light sentences
By NANCY CARR-- Canadian Press
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSLaw0204/18_cat-cp.html
TORONTO (CP) -- Animal-rights activists were outraged Thursday after a man
convicted of skinning and torturing a live cat was freed from jail and his
accomplice was sentenced to what they considered a "grounding."
Anthony Wennekers, 25, was sentenced to the time he has already served in the
downtown Don Jail since his arrest almost a year ago.
Jesse Power, 22, was sentenced to 90 days' jail time to be served on weekends,
plus house arrest requiring him to stay in his home except to attend school and
work, followed by three years on probation.
Both men were charged with cruelty to animals and mischief. The cruelty charge
carries a maximum sentence of six months; the mischief charge, a maximum of two
years. The Crown sought a 21/2-year sentence for both Power and Wennekers.
Their sentencing follows a trial in which a gruesome videotape of their crimes
was played to the courtroom, bringing spectators to tears.
For 15 minutes, the men and one other, who remains at large, hung a cat by its
neck from a telephone cord, slit its throat, stabbed, kicked and skinned it.
They then plucked out its eye with a dental tool and ripped off its ear with a
pair of pliers.
To gasps of horror, Ontario Court Judge Ted Ormston told the packed, tearful
courtroom Thursday he didn't sentence the men to the maximum time allowed
because he felt their crime was not the worst offence possible.
"There are worse ways that this cat could have died," said Ormston, who took
more than two weeks to deliberate the sentence.
"I find the cat died a cruel death at the hands of these men, but I do not find
it was the worst offence."
After viewing the videotape Ormston said the men could have spent longer
torturing the cat, but didn't.
That enraged some animal rights activists who had closely followed the
proceedings.
"I just simply can't believe the judge -- a 30-year cat-owner himself -- had
the audacity to say that cat's suffering wasn't enough, it wasn't heinous
enough," said Anne Gibson, a member of a Toronto animals rights group.
"He felt the intention was not to torture the cat. I can't imagine how he could
come up with that conclusion."
Ormston said that in court psychiatric reports, letters from Power's teachers
and from Power himself, he was convinced that Power was the ringleader of a
"misguided venture" to kill and eat a cat to protest animal cruelty. He did not
find the "initial motive" was torture.
Both Power and Wennekers pleaded guilty in January to the charges after the
cat's headless corpse was discovered last May in a Toronto rooming house.
Police are still hunting for a third man who took part in the bizarre
mutilation, the motive for which remains unclear.
Power's lawyer, Andrea Tuck-Jackson, told court it was part of a college art
project intended to make a statement against meat-eaters.
Tuck-Jackson painted her client as a brilliant artist and animal-lover whose
art project had gone awry. Prior to creating the cat-skinning video, he made
one for class at Toronto's Ontario College of Art and Design where he
slaughtered and consumed a chicken. He received a grade of A in that class.
Amy White, spokeswoman for the Toronto Humane Society, said she was angered
that Ormston sentenced Power in a manner that allows him to keep going to
school.
"He has committed a crime and we shouldn't now make the punishment fit around
his lifestyle," said White, who wanted Power to serve time in prison for his
crime.
Czernik had argued in early April his client had already suffered during his
custody in the Don Jail, where he was in "super-protective custody" because of
threats received from other inmates. He was allowed to leave his cell every
other day for a shower and he went outside for exercise four times in 10
months.
Dozens of animal-welfare activists outside the court held placards and banners
urging the government to change the criminal code to increase jail-time for
animal cruelty. Proposed legislation would see the penalty go from a maximum
sentence of six months in jail and a fine of $2,000, to a maximum of five years
in jail and an unlimited fine.
The proposed legislation would also carry a lifetime ban on owning animals for
people convicted of cruelty to animals.