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Author: Gabby Gaspard
Published: 3:12 PM CDT September 10, 2024
Updated: 3:12 PM CDT September 10, 2024
BEAUMONT, Texas — A Beaumont man has been sentenced to federal prison for animal cruelty violations, which included kicking a cat.
30-year-old Donaldvan Williams pleaded guilty to animal crushing and aiding and abetting. He was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Marcia A. Crone.
According to information presented in court, on October 15, 2021, Williams and Decorius Mire found a cat in the parking lot of a Beaumont apartment complex.
Williams kicked the cat as like he was kicking a football field goal, making the cat go approximately 15 to 20 feet through the air.
Williams was aware that the incident was being filmed by Mire on his cellphone and posted the video on social media, where it was commented on and shared with others.
Williams and Mire were prosecuted under the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act. The PACT Act bans the intentional crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impalement or other serious harm to “living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians.”
The law also bans any photograph, motion picture film, video, digital recording or electronic image that depicts animal cruelty.
Mire was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in July 2023.
