By KEN SERRANOSTAFF WRITER
FRANKLIN: Authorities charged two men with trying to drown a
feral cat in a bucket of kerosene, hitting it with a fire extinguisher -- and when it refused to die -- burying it in the
snow.
A feral cat rested in a cage at the Franklin Township Animal Shelter yesterday after surviving attempts to kill
it with kerosene, by beating and by burial in the snow.
The two men, Jason J. Mate, 31, of North Brunswick and Janos Kovas, 47, of the Somerset section of Franklin, were
issued summonses Saturday for inflicting cruelty upon an animal in the Wednesday incident.
Kovas and Mate are due
to appear in Municipal Court in Franklin on Feb. 18 at 5 p.m.
"Obviously we were all sickened over this," said Franklin
police Sgt. Marie Bandtlow.
Franklin police turned the case over to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals. The SPCA filed civil charges along with disorderly persons summonses, said SPCA agent Murray Rothblatt. Rothblatt
said the two men face up to six months in jail, 30 days of community service and fines if found guilty.
Mate and Kovas
work as maintenance workers at the Franklin-Hamilton Gardens on Hawthorne Drive where the alleged attack occurred.
An
anonymous caller tipped Franklin animal-control officers to the attack on the animal about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. When police
arrived, they saw the men trying to bury the cat while it was in a Havahart trap, said Katie Nordhaus, animal-control officer
for Franklin.
"When I got there, I couldn't even see the cat -- it was covered in snow," Nordhaus said. "Hypothermia
was setting in. He wasn't moving. When you start to freeze, you just stop moving."
Nordhaus and Karen Longworth, another
animal-control officer for Franklin, whisked the cat to Easton Animal Clinic on Easton Avenue in the township. After being
cleaned up, the cat was kept there for two days.
The cat, a 5-year-old male nicknamed "Stinky," now shares the animal
shelter with 10 dogs, nearly 40 cats and an iguana, Nordhaus said. Nordhaus said she prefers the name "Tommy " for the cat.
She said the cat still is frightened of people but is otherwise calm. She expected it to remain there from a couple
of weeks to several months before it is put up for adoption.
