/ 19 June 2006

Utah group offers sanctuary to ‘stalker’ cat

An animal sanctuary is offering a safe haven to Lewis the cat, a Fairfield, Connecticut, feline whose vicious attacks on neighbours have landed his owner in court.

Neighbours say they have been terrorised by Lewis, claiming the gray-and-white cat has used his long claws and stealth to attack at least a half-dozen people and ambush an Avon cosmetics salesperson.

The Best Friends Animal Society of Kanab, Utah, which claims to be the country’s largest no-kill animal sanctuary, offered to take Lewis free of charge.

”He would be cared for by specialists who know how to handle cats with behavior problems,” Russ Mead, Best Friends’ general counsel, wrote to Superior Court Judge Patrick Carroll.

The judge is expected to decide Lewis’s fate on Tuesday, when the cat’s owner, Ruth Cisero, returns to court. Cisero, who was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, earlier refused another judge’s offer of special probation because it carried the condition that Lewis be put to death.

Cisero’s attorney, Eugene Riccio, has described Lewis as ”a member of her family”. — Sapa-AP