An Ozone Park man was sentenced to a year in jail for bludgeoning a stray cat to death with a tire iron last year, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Friday.
Richard Ferrugio, 51, was convicted by a jury last month of aggravated cruelty to animals and criminal possession of a weapon. Queens Supreme Court Justice Joseph Zayas sentenced Ferrugio to a year in jail for aggravated cruelty to animals and six months for criminal possession of a weapon. The judge ordered the sentences to run concurrently.
According to trial testimony, an eyewitness saw Ferrugio take a metal lug wrench from the trunk of a Nissan Altima on the night of Feb. 7, 2012 an beat a cat outside of Neirs Tavern in Woodhaven, the DA said. When a second witness saw him kick the cat against a cement wall and told him to stop, Ferrugio walked over to her and said he would do the same thing to her, according to Brown
When several other people told him not to kill the cat, he stated that he did not care about the cat, that he was sick of the cat and that they would be nice, the DA said.
He then returned the lug wrench in the Altima’s trunk and fled the scene, according to Brown.
“The defendant has been found guilty of beating to death a helpless stray cat as horrified onlookers pleaded with him to stop,” Brown said in a prepared statement. “Such acts of aggression toward animals can not – and will not – be tolerated.”
At the time of Ferrugio’s arrest, he told police that the cat had scratched him and that he hit the cat once after becoming angry, the DA said. Ferrugio went on to say that when he saw the cat shaking and in misery, he did not want to let the animal suffer anymore and hit it until the feline was dead, according to Brown.
