A reminder that kicking a cat down the road can get you sentenced to years in a federal prison

I am a big animal lover, especially cats, and so I was struck by this notable NBC News story about a federal sentencing today in Texas for kicking a cat.  The story details that this cat kicking was quite extreme and horrific:

A Texas man on Tuesday was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for kicking a cat “as if kicking a football field goal,” in a case of abuse that was recorded and shared on social media, prosecutors said.

Donaldvan Williams, 30, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas said in a statement….

He pleaded guilty in October to animal crushing and aiding and abetting in connection with the Oct. 15, 2021, incident in the parking lot of a Beaumont apartment complex, according to court records.  The cat was foaming at the mouth and convulsing as if it was poisoned, according to a factual basis of the crime filed in court following a plea deal….

The kick was recorded by another man, Decorius Mire, who encouraged Williams to kick the cat, prosecutors said. Mire posted the video to social media. Mire was sentenced last year to 18 months in prison….

Williams was charged with kicking the cat, but the animal’s torture did not end there. Someone else, whose identity was not known when the case was presented to a grand jury, poured an accelerant on the cat and set it on fire, the indictment against Williams says. The animal running away on fire was also recorded on video.

Each man’s guilty plea dealt with kicking the cat and recording it, not the animal being set on fire, records show. Court records in the cases don’t appear to say if the cat lived or died.

I am inclined to suspect that the defendants here may have had some criminal history and/or were linked to the further torture of the cat to drive these sentencing outcomes.  Still, I suspect these cases may involve record-setting sentences for cat kicking.  Interestingly, almost exactly a decade ago, the New York Times a piece headlined “Should You Go to Jail for Kicking a Cat?“.  That piece was a follo up to prompted by this NY Times piece headlined “He Kicked a Stray Cat, and Activists Growled.”