- The Washington Times - Saturday, July 15, 2017

A California man received a 16-year prison sentence Friday for killing nearly two dozen cats he abducted from a San Jose neighborhood .

Robert Farmer, 26, received the maximum sentence possible from Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Sharon Chatman on Friday in connection with a 2015 crime spree that claimed the lives of more than 20 cats and terrorized a local community, according to prosecutors.

Farmer was arrested on Oct. 8, 2015 after police found him sleeping in his car alongside a dead tabby cat, fur-covered gloves and a hunting knife. Authorities soon connected him to the recent disappearance of several cats, and he pleaded guilty last year to 21 felony counts of animal cruelty, among other charges.

In all Farmer killed 21 cats and sexually abused a dead one, the Bay Area News Group reported Friday.

“Robert Farmer is a danger to society,” Deputy District Attorney Alexandra Ellis said in a statement. “For two months, the defendant terrorized a community, intentionally inflicted multiple acts of violence on vulnerable living creatures, killed multiple animals, battered a person and caused extreme anguish to dozens of families whose beloved pets went missing, were found injured or dead.”

In addition to serving a 16 year sentence, Farmer will be barred from visiting the San Jose neighborhood he targeted and prohibited from owning a pet for a decade following his release.

It “feels like another man committed these crimes, but I know it was me,” Farmer wrote in a letter read during sentencing, Bay Area News Group reported.

• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.

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