ILLINOIS -- Aurora resident Lynda Smith said the cats just know to come to her house.
"I must have a paw print on my property because the cats come," she said.
Even as she spoke, a cat hopped from the floor of her east side home onto a stack of boxes before disappearing into a pile of more boxes.
"They come in through a broken window," she said.
Smith seems oblivious to the pungent cat odor in her home, which the city has condemned. But the scent was unmistakable on her clothing as she arrived in court Tuesday to see if a new attorney can help her fight a tangle of charges that all stem from her love of--some call it an obsession with--cats.
Smith is facing animal cruelty charges stemming from the seizure of animals last fall. Her attorney of 10 months, Salvatore Miglore, was in court Tuesday to withdraw from the case.
"We have differences in how the case should be handled," Miglore said.
He noted that the state had offered to reduce the charges and not charge any fines or court costs.
"She would have to agree to periodic inspections of her home," he said. "The state even offered to buy her house for $70,000 and waive the $12,500 in liens on her property."
Smith, 62, doesn't have much contact with her two children. Her husband doesn't live with her anymore. Her father recently died. Her brother, who has cerebral palsy as well as a fondness for cats, lives nearby.
Smith has bronchial asthma and a form of Parkinson's disease that causes her head to nod uncontrollably.
Her oldest, most beloved cats, five or six of them, are at a Naperville no-kill animal shelter, she said.
"I talk to cats. I share my feelings with them. I sleep with them. I'm sorry I'm a mixed-up person. I used to help people, but now I help cats."
Last August and September, Aurora Animal Control removed 26 cats and one dog from Smith's home and her brother's residence, said Linda Nass, animal control manager.
Aurora allows residents to have four domesticated animals per household: two cats and two dogs.
Most of the animals were at the brother's house, where Smith was assumed to be living because her home was "deemed unfit for human habitation," Nass said. No charges have been filed against Smith's brother.
Cynthia Ralls of the Aurora advocacy group Just Housing said inspections, which could be done at any time, are a violation of Smith's 4th Amendment rights to unreasonable search and seizure.
But her former lawyer disagreed.
"All they're asking her to do is comply with the law," Miglore said.
It's a fair offer in the opinion of her new attorney, Michael Noland of Elgin.
Lynne Ellberg, administrative assistant with Kane County Animal Control, said on Sept. 25, 2000, Smith was "found guilty without malicious intent" of animal cruelty charges. She was not fined.
It was determined Smith was storing 48 caged cats in the garage of an elderly woman's house just outside the city limits, Ellberg said.
The cats were found in late June 2000 without food, water, or sufficient ventilation.
Smith has a therapist who is a specialist in obsessive compulsive disorders. She has Charlie Petrof, a staff attorney with the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Inc., helping her fight housing violation charges. She has a veterinarian, she said, who helps her care for her cats. She has an advocate and friend in Cynthia Ralls.
But the cats are all that really matters to Smith, who said they are more important than she is.
"The tools [the city] have used to try to fix this problem probably have made it worse. This all boils down to dealing with her disability," Petrof said.
(Chicago Tribune - June 11, 2004)
