A man caught torturing hamsters he had just bought from a pet store has been sentenced to three years probation.
Richard Mattia was also ordered to undergo substance abuse and psychiatric counseling as part of the plea bargain he reached with Somerset County authorities.
He initially was charged with animal cruelty and then faced drug possession after police found 18 packets of heroin on him when he was arrested.
Mattia was charged in October 2002 after a Watchung pet store employee saw him squeezing the hamster. Authorities said Mattia also clipped the hamsters' teeth so it wouldn't bite him.
Mattia also faces animal cruelty charges in Mountainside and is scheduled to appear in municipal court there next week. Those charges were filed by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals after two dwarf hamsters were found at Mattia's home last year.
Officials said one of the hamsters died after it was bruised and its teeth were damaged by nail clippers. The second hamster survived and, along with the hamster from the pet store case, was adopted by Terrence Clark, a deputy chief of the state's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. References | Anchorage Daily News | | Associated Press 404 |
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