Animal abuse: 16 months in prison for a man who threw a cat from the 2nd floor

UPGRADE DAY

A man in his 20s was sentenced Wednesday in Montreal Municipal Court to serve a 16-month prison sentence for killing a cat and a dog.

Marc-Antoine Côté, 24, had already pleaded guilty to two counts of having deliberately caused the death of the two animals at the end of last year. He had been kept in protective custody for 8 months.

Our Bureau of Investigation showed last November the story of the 9-month-old cat that Marc-Antoine Côté killed in March 2022 by throwing it second floor of his building.

The animal was found in the snow on the land of the accused. It was a witness who alerted the authorities. The man allegedly beat the cat all night and kicked and threw it against a concrete wall.

“He picked up the cat and threw it from the second floor so hard that she landed on a car in the street. He heard the knock. He went to find her and tried to revive her. He put the cat in the freezer. We don't know if he was dead at that time,” Chamie Angie Cadorette of the Montreal SPCA's Investigations Department told J.E.'s team.

Dog in a Bag of trash

In addition to the cat, a female dog was found in a trash can in September 2022. The animal's autopsy revealed that it had suffered multiple abuse, including fractured ribs. However, according to the judge, it was impossible to determine the exact cause of the death of the animal.

“The defendant will declare having snapped, it's his word obviously and not mine, lost control and then put the dog in a garbage bag, when she was probably still alive, because she was making sounds with her mouth, he says, without no form of empathy, ”said Judge Caumartin.

It was not his first act of mistreatment since he had already killed another animal in the past.

A three-year probation period with several conditions is added to the sentence in addition to a lifetime ban on owning animals.

“The court finds that in seeking an individualized sentence, harmonized with the penalties imposed in similar matters, proportional to the seriousness of the acts and the significant degree of responsibility of the defendant, the specific deterrence criteria of reprobation, awareness and protection of society must certainly prevail”, indicated Judge Julie Caumartin. .

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