Cat hanged in snare trap
Fort Walton Beach, FL (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Oct 23, 2003
County: Okaloosa
Disposition: Dismissed
Person of Interest: John Moll
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
A turtle patrol volunteer has been charged with felony animal cruelty for hanging a cat that he said was accidentally caught in a snare meant to capture raccoons without harm.
John Moll, 62, a retired jeweler, turned himself in on Oct 23 and was released on $1,000 bond. Penalties could range from probation to five years in prison if he is convicted.
Moll said he would plead innocent because he intended only to catch raccoons raiding his backyard goldfish ponds. He said he set the snare in a hole they were using to get under his fence.
"I've been trying to catch raccoons alive," Moll said. "The cat accidentally wound up coming through the hole."
He said he caught a raccoon around the body and turned it over to the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society, or PAWS, before the cat got snared by the neck last week.
Okaloosa County sheriff's spokesman Rick Hord said Moll's intent doesn't matter under the state's animal cruelty law. "If you take deliberate action that leads to the cruel death of an animal, that meets the standard," Hord said. "A reasonable person would have known that this kind of contraption would cause whatever animal it caught to suffer a painful death."
Moll said he did his volunteer work searching the beach for turtle nests at Eglin Air Force Base so they can be protected.
Case Updates| Animal cruelty charges were dismissed against John Moll on January 30, 2004, in Okaloosa County Court. | Source: Okaloosa County Court
Update posted on Mar 26, 2007 - 7:26PM |
References« FL State Animal Cruelty Map
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