NBC Bay Area – For keeping a house of cats, Jan Van Dusen may spend three years in state prison.
The Oakland lawyer, 62, who became known for rescuing feral and abandoned cats, was herself convicted of felony animal cruelty on Thursday, according to reports.
Van Dusen was charged with crimes after 93 cats were discovered at her home in West Oakland, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The home was raided by animal control officers, who were tipped off to their poor situation.
Sixteen of the cats were so sick and malnourished that they had to be put down. The rest were put up for adoption.
She’ll be sentenced on July 25. Her attorney told reporters that she deserves probation, not prison.
It’s been a long run, Jan, I have to tip my hat to you on that because somewhere along the lines of finishing law school and getting cat number two, you became a cat lady. I don’t knock girls that have a cat, I think it’s fine but it’s not really my presence, but somewhere after getting cat two and three, they become a cat lady and go deep down into their own dark world of having cats. Like any friends that’s binging on House of Cards, it’s all they think about. Any potential suitor to Ms. Jan was scared off some 25 years ago at least by her cat tendencies. Sure, it probably didn’t affect her work because if anybody is determined to justify or defend anything, it’s a cat lady. Yet you can only go on the run for so long before you’re caught having that much of anything.
The scary thing to think about is that she’s for sure been a cat lady for at least four decades, right? Which by simple math would mean she’s probably had at least 250 cats in her possession over that time frame which is enough to make even me cough a fur ball. How does one even breathe with that much pet dander around your house? It’s gross to think about and there’s no way she’s ever cleaning up that many litter boxes, probably just cat shat all throughout her house and being a lawyer I assume she just dumps the food out and let the animals go to town. Food Mountain style.