According to an April 12 report by Montgomery Real Time News, the case against two Wetumpka, Alabama women arrested last year for feeding feral cats has been dismissed. City prosecutor Kenny James filed a motion seeking both cases be “nolle pros” which means the city does not wish to continue prosecution of the cat caregivers.
Beverly Roberts, 85, and Mary Alston, 61, were convicted on four counts and received a punishment of two years unsupervised probation and ten days in jail (the jail sentence was suspended) after being arrested June 25, 2022.
Elmore County Circuit Court Judge J. Amanda Baxley dismissed the charges on Wednesday. In October, Wetumpka became the focus of national attention for the way the police treated the women after bodycam footage was obtained and made public.
One of the attorneys for the ladies, William Sashy, told The Montgomery Monitor “We, of course, are very pleased that Wetumpka has decided to dismiss the charges. I am advising our clients not to make any comments at this time.”
It was determined during the trial that Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis was the one to report the two cat ladies to police when he spotted their cars parked as they were caring for the cats. Willis claims he never told the police to arrest them.
It’s not known at this time whether Beverly and Mary will be allowed to return to feeding the cats. A lawsuit has been hinted at not only due to the fact the ladies were on public property, but also because feeding cats isn’t against the law in Wetumpka. Couple that with the treatment (can we say manhandling?) the ladies received during the arrest process and someone could end up with a whopper of a lawsuit.
More to come should information become available.
Other coverage of this story by Elisa can be found by clicking here.
This is so upsetting. Sweet ladies trying to help the animals and city with overpopulation. Ignorance and abuse of old ladies. Where’s the protestors for this ????????
Well, there was quite a lot of protest at the time. The judge has seen sense.
Praise god that common sense has arrived thank you very much for this article Because we are going way crazy in the common sense department in a lot of places
You are not alone in your thoughts on this case, Michelle. I hope you are well.
Thanks for this Elisa. I was just doing the same update on a subdomain and noticed your article. We think alike. Thanks again and I hope you and yours are keeping well.