79-Year-Old Woman Sentenced to Jail Time, and Her Only Crime Was Feeding Stray Cats
What started as a small act of kindness turned into a court case for one Ohio woman. Nancy Segula says she was only trying to help stray cats that kept showing up on her porch, but her neighbors saw it very differently.
Segula, who lives on Havana Road in Garfield Heights, began feeding the cats years ago after a neighbor moved away and left a couple behind. The situation kept growing, and so did the complaints, until city officials got involved and the citations started piling up.
Now the 79-year-old is facing jail time over a habit she says came from compassion. Read on.
“It began in 2017 with me feeding stray kitties. I used to have a neighbor who had a couple of cats, and when he moved away, he left them,” Segula said. “I would always feed them and care for them because I was worried about them, and I’m a cat lover. Once my neighbors got upset about it, they called the animal warden.”
Her very first citation was in 2017. Last week, she was required to appear before Magistrate Jeffrey Short due to her last citation, where he sentenced her to 10 days in the Cuyahoga County Jail.
“I got a total of four,” Segula said.
This is similar to the entitled mom who tried stealing a man’s cat and demanded medical fees.
“I couldn’t believe what my mother was telling me. She gets 10 days in the county jail; I couldn’t believe it,” said her son, Dave Pawlowski. “I’m sure people hear about the things that happen downtown in that jail. And they are going to let my 79-year-old mother go there?”
Even though it is true that in Garfield Heights it is indeed illegal to feed stray dogs and cats under ordinance 505.23, her son still doesn't think that the punishment fits the crime.
“It’s too much of a sentence for me for what I’m doing, especially when there are so many people out there who do bad things,” she said.
Segula is supposed to report to the county jail on August 11 at 9 AM.
We hope she finds a way to avoid jail time because this is utterly ridiculous.
For more animal drama, read how a cat-adopting mom blamed her estranged kids.
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