Maria Vaccarella, a mother of three who works part time in a nursing home, rejected an offer Wednesday to plead guilty to unauthorized possession of wildlife in exchange for a suspended fine and $35 in court costs, she said.
“I can’t plead guilty to saving a life,” Vaccarella said. “It’s ludicrous.”
Her attorney, Doris Lin of Freehold Township, an animal rights advocate who is representing Vaccarella for free, said Lin’s case was transferred from Howell to Freehold Township Municipal Court because Vaccarella knows the municipal court judge in Howell.
On Wednesday, Vaccarella and Lin went to see Freehold Township Prosecutor Anthony Vecchio, who made the plea offer, they said.
Vecchio told Lin that he could not accept the counteroffer of dismissing the summons because the state Division of Fish and Wildlife refused to accept that.
Bob Considine, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the division, declined to comment.
Vecchio did not return a call.
Lin argued that the law was unconstitutionally vague, that the Legislature never intended the law to penalize people like Vaccarella, that the case was not worth wasting the resources of the state Division of Fish and Wildlife and that a licensed wildlife rehabilitator told Vaccarella to hold onto the squirrels until May because the rehabilitator had no room for them.
Vaccarella’s husband Anthony found the squirrels’ sluggish mother after the Fourth of July holiday. She gave birth to the two squirrels and when the mother fled, Vaccarella started taking care of them.
Vaccarella called wildlife rehabilitators but could find no one to take the squirrels, she said.
Caring for the baby squirrels took time and effort. They have to be fed every two hours, Vaccarella said.
When autumn arrived, she felt like her options were to let them go in the cold or keep them until May, she said.
“I wasn’t keeping them as pets,” said the mother of three boys. “I didn’t want these things running around my house.”
In late October, as she and her 9-year-old son Anthony were about to head out and go trick-or-treating, two division officers knocked on her door. They had seen Facebook photo of one of the squirrels, they told her.
After being told it was against the law to keep them, she complied and gave the officers a cage to take the squirrels away, she said.
“I figured that would be the end of it,” Vaccarella said. “That wasn’t the end.”
She received a summons in the mail for unauthorized possession of wildlife, which carries a fine of $100 to $500.
The next court date for Vaccarella, and where the trial will be heard, is still up in the air, Lin said.
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