Petition signatures are needed to seek the maximum sentence for the animal-abusing North Carolina couple who abandoned 16 cats in November, 2016. This PoC article will bring you up to date as to what happened to the cats, and this article tells of the arrest of Terry Beasley and Tamara Perezlazaro. The petition will be delivered personally to the District Attorney of Johnson County and the Honorable Susan Doyle.
On January 24 this couple asked for a court-appointed attorney. The new court date is February 28, 2017. Animal abuse is not considered particularly important in this area — both charges for Animal Abuse and Animal Abandonment are misdemeanors carrying a maximum of 120 days — but animal advocates following the case and those searching personally for the eight cats who remain missing would like very much to see these two receive the maximum possible sentence. Please let the Johnston County, NC District Attorney, Susan Doyle (919-209-5520), know that animal abusers deserve the full weight of the law.
A Change.org petition has been set up to see this happens. From what I’m gathering, Beasley and Perezlazaro are only facing one charge each instead of the 16 each for animal abandonment and animal cruelty. At least that’s what was reported by WRAL News. Kathy Kamins, an animal advocate who has been on the front lines searching for the cats, told WRAL
“It is supposed to be 16 counts of animal cruelty and 16 counts of abandonment. (One) for each cat.”
The Johnson County District Attorney’s Office is looking into the case and says more charges may be filed. This is fine, except they should have already been filed at the time of their arrest. A similar situation took place in the Julianne Westberry case, where Westberry was charged with only one or two offenses of animal cruelty, despite a house full of dead and dying cats.
We, as animal lovers, can’t allow history to repeat itself. Some of the dumped cats were declawed, some were seniors, at least one was missing all of her teeth, and all were indoor cats with no survival skills. Since then people have been out every single day looking for these dumped cats and have found nine so far. Tamara and Terry have not bothered to help. The other cats are probably dead from starvation, freezing or predators.
Please sign the petition and also call the Johnston County, NC District Attorney, Susan Doyle at (919-209-5520) to let them know that animal abusers deserve the full weight of the law and that the charges should be changed from misdemeanor to felony charges.
Elisa
Hope that they get what they deserve. Cause them cats didn’t do anything wrong to deserve what they did to them.
Maximum sentence each for 16 crimes each!
Thanks Jody. Some people are still very ignorant and cruel.
It’s never ending! People, we know better! STOP!