An Ohio woman has been jailed for a year for killing and eating a cat.
Allexis T. Ferrell’s arrest received worldwide attention after it was falsely used as proof of claims by Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating their pets.
Ferrell, 27, from Canton, Ohio, pleaded guilty on Monday to cruelty to animals and was given the maximum prison sentence by Stark County Common Pleas Ferrell’s Frank G. Forchione, according to the Canton Repository.
“I can’t express the disappointment, shock, disgust that this crime has brought to me. I don’t know what could prompt anyone to want to eat a cat,” said the judge.
“You’ve embarrassed this county. You’ve embarrassed this nation. More importantly, you’ve embarrassed yourself,” added Forchione. “To me, you present quite a danger to our community. This is repulsive to me, I mean, that anyone would do this to an animal. And an animal’s like a child. I don’t know if you understand that or not.”
“Absolutely,” the Repository quoted Ferrell’s response.
“They bring a lot of love to a lot of people,” Forchione continued. “They don’t have a voice. But their only voice today is me and I’m going to exercise this voice very loudly.”
The defendant had previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a competency report from Akron’s Psycho-Diagnostic Clinic said she was capable of understanding the court proceedings.
After the August 16 arrest, a video from police bodycam footage was posted with a bogus headline–‘Haitian Woman East Neighbor’s Cat in Springfield.’
Prosecutors said police arrived at the scene before Ferrell was able to eat much of the cat.
“Officers were able to determine that Allexis had smashed the cat’s head with her foot and then began to eat the cat. I did observe blood on Allexis’ feet, hands, and fur on her lips,” said an officer’s report.
The Canton Repository reported that the mother-of-three’s psychological report said she was “irritable, aggressive, deceitful, lacks remorse, shows a reckless disregard for the safety of others and fails to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.”
Ferrell appealed to the judge for treatment for drug and alcohol dependencies.
During his only presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Trump repeated a baseless claim that immigrants in Ohio were eating domestic pets, saying: “In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating—they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”
The video of Ferrell’s arrest was circulated online shortly afterward, but the Canton incident happened approximately 170 miles from Springfield and Ferrell is a U.S. citizen.
