Cat abandoned - 10 dead, 6 found alive
Philadelphia, PA (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003
County: Philadelphia
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Jeanie Connor-Faust
The law has caught up with the Philly schoolteacher whose abandoned rowhouse turned into a reeking hell of dead and dying cats. The Pennsylvania SPCA yesterday charged Jeanie Connor-Faust with 16 counts of cruelty to animals for leaving the hapless felines to their fate when she walked away from her former home on Conlyn Street near 20th in Logan.
"There was 10 dead and six alive," said SPCA officer Gary Lovett, describing the cats that city animal control officers toted out of a house filled with rubbish and cat feces in June. The six live animals had to be euthanized.
Connor-Faust, 52, had taught city elementary school children since 1991, at least part of that time at Pennell Elementary School at Ogontz and Nedro avenues.
But she has been re-assigned to non-teaching, administrative duties during the cat cruelty investigation, a School District spokesman said.
For months, Lovett had no clue where Connor-Faust had moved after she left the house on Conlyn Street last spring. He caught up with her Tuesday at the School District's Northwest Regional Office at Leeds Middle School in Mount Airy.
Accompanied by a city animal control officer and an investigator for the School District, Lovett said he told Connor-Faust that he would charge her with cruelty to animals - specifically, with abandoning the cats and depriving them of the "necessary sustenance to survive."
Yesterday, Connor-Faust accepted an SPCA summons requiring her to report to Municipal Court later this month for a hearing date. If convicted, she could face fines up to $750 and as much as 90 days in prison for each cruely charge.
"She's very nice, very clean," commented Lovett. "Usually, when you have something like that, you don't expect to see a very clean lady."
Connor-Faust, who now lives in the Northeast, "did express concern," said Lovett, and seemed worried about the possibility of losing her job.
However, said School District spokesman Vincent Thompson, "She's still being paid while the incident is being investigated. The woman has not been convicted of a crime, so she is allowed due process."
Lovett said the former teacher told him that when she moved out, she had left the Conlyn Street house and the cats that lived there in the custody of her son, who neighbors say is about 21. It was unclear whether the son also had left the house for an extended period before investigators entered the building in response to neighbors' complaints in June.
The stench of urine and cat feces wafted from the house while city crews battled fleas, fumigated the property, boarded it up and hauled off Dumpster-loads of the waist-high debris. The Department of Licenses and Inspections has said it's looking for a responsible party to pay back the $25,152 cost.
The property owner was still listed on city records as Connor-Faust's late father, Earvin Connor References« PA State Animal Cruelty Map
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