Carrick woman charged after 64 cats found in home

PENNSYLVANIA -- A Carrick woman was charged with 64 counts of animal cruelty this morning after police and humane officers found scores of cats living in filth in her squalid home last month.

Five of the counts against Joan Martinez, 49, are misdemeanors because five cats died after they were pulled from the home, Zone 3 police Officer Christine Luffey said. The rest are summary offenses.

Joan Martinez being escorted off the property

One of Martinez's sons

Ms. Martinez was lodged in the Allegheny County Jail where she is awaiting arraignment.

Officer Luffey said a June 10 search warrant at her home in the 2000 block of Hazeldell Street found cats, some of them pregnant, milling about in their own waste and floors teeming with cockroaches.

Police went to the house after neighbors complained of the strong odor emanating from it.

The house was condemned

Officer Luffey said the June raid wasn't the first time she had been there. She said she found 17 cats in the home a year earlier, and charged Ms. Martinez with crimes including animal cruelty and harboring a nuisance.

Channel 11's Jodine Costanzo reported that the woman managed to clean the home up after receiving the citations, but each time let the home get bad again.

"They would pay the fines and the situation would come back to what it was. But this time it has deteriorated beyond my wildest dreams," Luffey said.

Ms. Martinez told police she refused to relinquish the animals or to have them spayed and neutered and the number of cats in the home grew to 64.

Officers last month tried to capture as many cats as they could and set traps for the others. The surviving cats are with Animal Friends, which has incurred more than $20,000 worth of medical expenses, Officer Luffey said.

She described Ms. Martinez as a hoarder and has asked that she undergo a psychiatric evaluation. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 11.

(Post Gazette - July 1, 2011)