Hagerstown, Md A man convicted of killing four of his girlfriends kittens by throwing them into a fire was sentenced Thursday to nearly a year in prison despite the couple's pleas for leniency.
Washington County Circuit Judge John H. McDowell also urged authorities to investigate whether defendant Robert L. Tomlin's girlfriend, Kelli Green, participated in the animal abuse and then lied to police.
"You have given so many stories, conflicting stories, about what happened that evening that I don't believe a word that you have to say right now," McDowell told Green after she spoke in Tomlin's defense.
McDowell ordered Tomlin, 22, to serve the maximum 341 days in prison for violating his probation by moving back in with Green and her five remaining cats days after he pleaded guilty Nov. 13 to aggrevated animal cruelty. The plea bargain had included a suspended, 18 month prison term and three years of supervised probation with conditions that Tomlin avoid contact with Green and animals.
Tuesday's sentence included credit for 199 days Tomlin has already spent in custody.
Green, 20, initially had implicated Tomlin in the July 2 deaths of her kittens but she recanted a month later.
"We were both drunk," she said in court Tuesday. "I barely remember anything from that night."
Tomlin, a high-school dropout, failed to contact his probation agent immediately after his release from custody in November, and then he lied to the agent that he was living with his grandmother in Hagerstown, Deputy State's Attorney Steven C. Kessell said. Instead, Tomlin said he was living on the streets and sleeping in a homeless shelter until he and Green reconnected around Thanksgiving.
"I was just trying to do what was right for me," Tomlin said.
Green said Tomlin had been well-behaved before he was re-arrested at her home in Smithsburg Nov 29. She said he was taking classes, applying for jobs and not drinking. "He was doing everything he was supposed to," she said.
Green declined to comment after the hearing on McDowell's suggestion that she be investigated for animal cruelty.
Kessell said the state's attorney's office took the judge's comment seriously. "If the court is directing it, we will follow the court's decision," he said.