Woman faces felony charges of aggravated animal cruelty towards cats

Jennifer Oustrich

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

PA|Homepage reports that a woman has been charged with animal cruelty in putting down rat poisoning which killed at least two cats. This was made a felony within the past year in Pennsylvania, USA. She lives in Taylor, Lackawanna County.

The reason why I am posting this is because I think it is unusual for a woman to allegedly deliberately poison cats. You get cases of woman hurting cats through neglect but that’s a different matter. Her name is Jennifer Oustrich. She is accused of killing the cats near a property that she owns.

We are told that a neighbour found several dead cats and poison pellets embedded piles of dog food.

Another neighbour, Brittany Hufford, said that the poison risked her cat and dog and her kids.

The accused said that she was trying to stop stray cats getting into her tenant’s garbage. It seems that she is a landlord for some rented properties and lives several blocks from the area where she allegedly put down the rat poison.

However, her excuse seems very poor. Well, to be honest, there is no excuse for this sort of behaviour. Putting down poison in food is highly irresponsible. If she is convicted, she could have called the SPCA or sought help from a number of other sources.

Making this sort of animal cruelty a felony is new to Pennsylvania. There may be some hiccups in this prosecution for that reason. In this instance, they may have difficulty establishing the intention (mens rea) which I expect the crime requires. This is why she has said her intention was not to kill cats.

Necropsies are being carried out on some of the deceased cats. Oustrich is on $50k bail and will return to court next month.

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4 thoughts on “Woman faces felony charges of aggravated animal cruelty towards cats”

  1. You don’t have mens reas in all criminal cases. If her states criminal code states willingly, knowingly or recklessly then she will be found guilty.

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  2. You don’t be reas all criminal cases. If her states criminal code states willingly, knowingly or recklessly then she will be guilty.

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  3. Inhumanity knows no gender. While I believe it is incumbent for cat guardians to stop letting their pet cats roam it is never an excuse for someone to injure , poison, shoot, trap and kill any stray.
    As to keeping stray cats and other animals out of her tenant garbage it’s called a lid and a bungee. Something my trash hauler recommends. I also sprinkled black pepper around the bins when my neighbors dogs began tipping them. They now associate my bins as being no fun.
    When you put poison down you are putting it down for any living creature who happens upon it. It’s also called baiting which is usually illegal regardless of any other charges.
    Throw the book at this woman and make an example of her.
    There have been several cases here where someone put antifreeze laced meat out for stray dogs and cats on their own property thinking that if the animal was on their land it wasn’t their fault of the animal ingested poison. Didn’t work out to well for them.
    My experience with pet owners who let them roam astray , cats and dogs is that when that animal expires due to their negligence they simply replace it. The issue is a human problem not animal. Of course humans are 100% responsible for the feral cat population and few if any are every held accountable for tossing their cat out.

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