Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz says<\/a> that Jalen Gonzalez, 23, of Woodhaven, killed the feline \u2014named Kitty \u2014 in January, leaving it partially decapitated, among other injuries.<\/p>\nProsecutors allege that just after midnight on Jan. 12, Gonzalez was drunk and refused to leave his girlfriend\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez then grabbed his girlfriend\u2019s leg, but she managed to pull herself away and left the apartment to call a relative for help.<\/p>\n
When the woman and an uncle returned, prosecutors say that Gonzalez was seen holding the cat by its neck and was stretching the animal apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis animal endured one of the most gratuitously violent deaths that we have ever seen in the borough of Queens,\u201d said Katz in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs alleged, defendant Jalen Gonzalez was upset with his girlfriend and turned his ire on the woman\u2019s pet, named Kitty,\u201d the district attorney continued. \u201cNo animal or person should ever suffer this way.\u201d <\/p>\n
Prosecutors say that Gonzalez\u2019s shirt was \u201csaturated\u201d with blood, and that blood and vomit were found all over the apartment. <\/p>\n
A necropsy revealed that the cat had: a crushed, flattened skull; a fractured jaw and missing teeth; eyes protruding from both sockets; 24 rib fractures; a torn artery in the heart; a shattered pelvis and two fractured legs; and damage to several internal organs.<\/p>\n
The necropsy also showed the cat\u2019s head was internally severed from the spine, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals, criminal mischief, attempted assault and harassment.<\/p>\n
If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queens man was charged with animal cruelty on Tuesday after prosecutors say he stretched his girlfriend\u2019s cat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-183197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}