Driver Convicted in Death of Mama Duck, But Gets No Jail Time
A jury this week took only 15 minutes to convict a 25-year-old man of animal cruelty for running over a mother duck, in front of her 12 ducklings, in a Massachusetts shopping mall parking lot.
But Joshua Linhares was sentenced to probation rather than the year in jail that prosecutors in the New Bedford District Court case had sought, reports the Boston Herald.
A witness, supported by video surveillance footage, said Linhares appeared to have run over the mother Mallard duck deliberately. She reportedly had been nesting at the Dartmouth Town Center shopping mall for at least five years.
However, Linhares testified that he didn’t see the ducks.
The dozen orphaned ducklings were raised by a foster family and then released into the wild, the newspaper says.
