The Palm Coast man allegedly told an acquaintance that he accidentally choked a cat to death, and that he also bit the lips off one of the kittens and burnt its ear and whiskers with a lighter, according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office report obtained by the Dayton Beach News-Journal.
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| Angel Vega Roman |
The owners of the kittens had rented a room to Roman. They were unaware of the harm to the kittens until May 20. One of the landlords told a deputy that Roman spends a lot of time with the kittens, holding them all the time, and that trouble may have started when the landlords were out of town, leaving Roman alone with the kittens.
At one point Roman called the landlords to let them know that someone was interested in taking ownership of two of them. They granted permission. But a couple of days later, when everyone was back in the house, a kitten was found dead. The landlords initially attributed it to natural causes. But then they noticed another kitten had a few injuries. Those injuries worsened quickly.
When his roommates asked him about the kittens, Roman admitted that he had choked the one that had been found dead weeks earlier, and described how he had injured the other, called Oreo.
On May 20, the animal was turned over to Palm Coast’s animal control division, then examined by a veterinarian on may 21, who confirmed that the injuries had been inflicted as Roman had described it.
The cat, which Roman allegedly tortured by burning and biting but did not kill, was a black-and-white kitten named Oreo, the News-Journal reported.
(International Business Times - May 29, 2012)
