Scammer who tortured cats hit with state's harshest animal abuse penalty
After a yearslong practice of torturing cats to create social media donation campaigns generating over $400,000 for nearly 20 abused animals, a 27-year-old Virginia man has received 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to animal abuse and computer fraud. (Photo from Shutterstock)
After a yearslong practice of torturing cats to create social media donation campaigns generating over $400,000 for nearly 20 abused animals, a 27-year-old Virginia man has received 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to animal abuse and computer fraud.
Courthouse News Service has the story.
On Wednesday, Henrico County Circuit Judge Linda Lambert in Virginia accepted a plea agreement requiring that Rodney Travis Jr. receive the state’s longest such sentence, prosecutors said. The Chesterfield County, Virginia, resident did not speak at the hearing.
The day before, he also pleaded guilty in his home county after citizens alerted the local police, who contacted the state attorney general’s animal law unit of the suspected animal cruelty.
Travis used three Henrico, Virginia, hotels to create footage of the cats for the fundraising videos. A witness told police Feb. 13 that Travis had checked in at one hotel at 2 a.m. and left at 9:50 a.m.
Investigators found cat blood and hair, prompting them to obtain a search warrant for his apartment where they found six cats—one of which has since died—as well as cat beds covered in blood, a leather book of hexes and curses containing cat blood and fur, and a whiteboard spelling out the fraud’s details.
Via various aliases, Travis posted videos of injured cats with captions, such as “I don’t want to lose my best friend,” or “she’s all I have.”
Previously, Travis raised over $300,000 while in California under the guise of seeking gender affirming surgery. No charges were filed.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
.jpg)
