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PRESS RELEASE
RELEASE DATE: Immediately (May 18, 2007)
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Gene Baierschmidt
(801) 261-2919
KITTEN TORTURER TO BE SENTENCED MONDAY --- HUMANE SOCIETY URGES MAXIMUM PENALTY
At 10:00 AM on Monday, May 21st, Clint Wilkes will be sentenced by Judge Peggy Acomb in Room S4200 of the Salt Lake County Justice of the Peace Court located at 2001 S. State Street, and the Humane Society of Utah has been encouraging the public to urge Judge Acomb to impose the maximum possible penalty - six months in jail and a $1,000 fine - on him.
Wilkes is the man accused of having collected free kittens last fall through newspaper classified ads and then gruesomely torturing them. He was originally charged with two counts of cruelty to animals, a Class A misdemeanor, and a single Class B misdemeanor charge of animal abandonment. In exchange for his pleading guilty to the abandonment charge, the two cruelty charges were dropped. While the fact that Wilkes has been ordered to undergo psychological counseling and is attempting to overcome his addiction to methamphetamine drugs is a positive thing, the Humane Society nevertheless feels that the heinous nature of the abuse inflicted on the kittens, several of whom had to be euthanized because of the severity of the damage they suffered, should be viewed as a serious moral and legal offense.
The Society is asking concerned members of the public to be present at Wilkes’s sentencing on Monday morning. "We’d like to see a strong turnout of the people who are still shocked at the frivolous manner in which Henry’s Bill, which would have made crimes like this a third-degree felony, was dismissed by the Utah State Legislature in its last session," says HSU Executive Director Gene Baierschmidt. "Enough is enough. Forty-three other states have felony provisions in their animal-cruelty statutes. If we can’t get our legislators to take seriously things like baking live dogs in hot ovens and scalding kittens with chemicals, then we’re going to try to see that the courts at least implement the laws that we do have to the fullest extent."
For more information, call 261-2919.
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