CONVICTED: Was justice served?
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Case #10818 Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Two skunks beaten to death, skulls crushed Clinton, MA (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Jul 28, 1999 County: Worcester
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: John D. Rousseau
John D. Rousseau received a one-year prison sentence in 2000 for cruelty to animal charges stemming from a dispute with neighbors. He had bashed two skunks to death with a trash barrel lid and tossed them into a neighbor's yard.
He was arrested on July 28, 1999 for attacking and killing two skunks and dumping them on his neighbor's property. He was convicted of 2 counts of animal cruelty, 1 count of disturbing the peace, and 1 count of disorderly conduct as the result of the incident and was sentenced to one year in jail. The conviction date was June 16, 2000 under case # 9968CR001223 in Clinton District Court.
In 1996, when Mr. Rousseau was 17, he and a friend were convicted of vandalism at the Florence Sawyer Elementary School construction site in Bolton. He received a six-month sentence.
Before that, police said, he was frequently in trouble for stealing and disabling electrical meters, fireboxes and security alarms.
In 2003, he was charged with arson in connection with a six-month series of fires in four vacant Clinton buildings and a trash bin. Those charges were dismissed last December at the request of the prosecution, after a judge ordered that incriminating statements attributed to Mr. Rousseau be suppressed because he was not taking medications for mental health problems when he allegedly confessed.
While awaiting trial on the arson charges as well as a charge of impersonating a police officer, Mr. Rousseau was under house arrest for nearly a year and ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device. He pleaded guilty to the impersonation charge and was sentenced to the 222 days he had already served under house arrest. The impersonation charge involved Mr. Rousseau tapping into police, fire, and railroad radio frequencies and posing as a Leominster police officer.
Since his release from house arrest, Mr. Rousseau has been quite visible around town. He said he would like to see an increased police presence on High Street, to deal with parking, trash, and drug problems. References |