Animal Torture 'Not the Worst Offence': Judge
Two men receive light sentences (time served and 90 days) in torture killings
Originally published by The Canadian Press, April 18, 2002
Animal-rights activists were outraged today after a man convicted of skinning and torturing a live cat was freed from jail and his accomplice was sentenced to what they considered a "grounding."
Anthony Wennekers, 25, was sentenced to the time he has already served in the downtown Don Jail since his arrest almost a year ago.
Jesse Power, 22, was sentenced to 90 days' jail time to be served on weekends, plus house arrest requiring him to stay in his home except to attend school and work, followed by three years on probation.
Both men were charged with cruelty to animals and mischief. The cruelty charge carries a maximum sentence of six months; the mischief charge, a maximum of two years. The Crown sought a 2 1/2 -year sentence for both Power and Wennekers.
Their sentencing follows a trial in which a gruesome videotape of their crimes was played to the courtroom, bringing spectators to tears.
For 15 minutes, the men and one other, who remains at large, hung a cat by its neck from a telephone cord, slit its throat, stabbed, kicked and skinned it. They then plucked out its eye with a dental tool and ripped off its ear with a pair of pliers.
To gasps of horror, Ontario Court Judge Ted Ormston told the packed, tearful courtroom Thursday he didn't sentence the men to the maximum time allowed because he felt their crime was not the worst offence possible.
"There are worse ways that this cat could have died," said Ormston, who took more than two weeks to deliberate the sentence.
"I find the cat died a cruel death at the hands of these men, but I do not find it was the worst offence."
After viewing the videotape Ormston said the men could have spent longer torturing the cat, but didn't.
That enraged some animal rights activists who had closely followed the proceedings.
"I just simply can't believe the judge—a 30-year cat-owner himself—had the audacity to say that cat's suffering wasn't enough, it wasn't heinous enough," said Anne Gibson, a member of a Toronto animals rights group.
"He felt the intention was not to torture the cat. I can't imagine how he could come up with that conclusion."
Ormston said that in court psychiatric reports, letters from Power's teachers and from Power himself, he was convinced that Power was the ringleader of a "misguided venture" to kill and eat a cat to protest animal cruelty. He did not find the "initial motive" was torture.
Both Power and Wennekers pleaded guilty in January to the charges after the cat's headless corpse was discovered last May in a Toronto rooming house.
Police are still hunting for a third man who took part in the bizarre mutilation, the motive for which remains unclear.
Power's lawyer, Andrea Tuck-Jackson, told court it was part of a college art project intended to make a statement against meat-eaters.
Tuck-Jackson painted her client as a brilliant artist and animal-lover whose art project had gone awry. Prior to creating the cat-skinning video, he made one for class at Toronto's Ontario College of Art and Design where he slaughtered and consumed a chicken. He received a grade of A in that class.
Amy White, spokeswoman for the Toronto Humane Society, said she was angered that Ormston sentenced Power in a manner that allows him to keep going to school.
"He has committed a crime and we shouldn't now make the punishment fit around his lifestyle," said White, who wanted Power to serve time in prison for his crime.
Czernik had argued in early April his client had already suffered during his custody in the Don Jail, where he was in "super-protective custody" because of threats received from other inmates. He was allowed to leave his cell every other day for a shower and he went outside for exercise four times in 10 months.
Dozens of animal-welfare activists outside the court held placards and banners urging the government to change the criminal code to increase jail-time for animal cruelty. Proposed legislation would see the penalty go from a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a fine of $2,000, to a maximum of five years in jail and an unlimited fine.
The proposed legislation would also carry a lifetime ban on owning animals for people convicted of cruelty to animals.
