Christopher Sanchez, 29, sentenced to 4 years, 6 months for killing his cat Lilith; he is banned from ever proudly owning or residing with an animal.
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FREEHOLD, NJ — A Howell man has been sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in state jail for deliberately killing his pet cat named Lilith final 12 months, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago introduced Friday.
Christopher Sanchez, 29, was sentenced by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Scott C. Arnette.
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Arnette additionally banned Sanchez from ever proudly owning or residing in a home with a pet or different animal.
Sanchez has been within the Monmouth County Jail since his arrest within the incident.
Howell police discovered the cat’s physique outdoors of Sanchez’s home after they went there March 31, 2023, on an unrelated matter. Sanchez claimed he killed her with a pointy object after she was mortally wounded by being hit by a automotive, however a necropsy disproved that story.
Howell police and the Humane Law Enforcement Division of the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals carried out an investigation, figuring out that Sanchez used a pointy instrument to kill the cat two days earlier, recording images and video footage of the act.
Sanchez was arrested on the identical day because the preliminary police response. He has remained incarcerated on the Monmouth County Correctional Institution since.
He pleaded responsible in December 2023 to third-degree animal cruelty by unnecessarily or cruelly abusing a residing animal, leading to its dying, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
He was additionally sentenced for easy assault, a disorderly individuals offense, as a result of Sanchez bodily attacked his roommate shortly after killing the cat, authorities mentioned.
Arnette set further necessities past the jail time period, together with that Sanchez is ordered to don’t have any contact with the sufferer of the assault, to by no means return to the scene of the crime, to give up all of his privately owned firearms, and to have interaction in 30 days of neighborhood service.
He additionally acquired a everlasting ban on proudly owning or residing in a residence with any pet or animal, and was ordered to pay $525 in restitution – to cowl the cost of the necropsy that disproved his preliminary declare to authorities that the cat’s dying was a mercy killing necessitated by her being mortally injured from being struck by a automobile.
The case was prosecuted by Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutors Keri-Leigh Schaefer and Sevan Biramian.
