A Claremont man is accused of whipping his neighbor's cat earlier this year, causing injuries that resulted in the pet's death, according to indictments handed up last week by a Sullivan County grand jury.

 (Photo courtesy of Kristen Senz, The NH Union Leader)  Bruce Robie, 40, of 24 High St., Apt. 1, is charged with one count of felony cruelty to animals. If convicted, he faces three and a half to seven years in state prison and up to a $4,000 fine.

Robie was arrested around 9 p.m. July 17 after his neighbor, Vanilla-Clove Moonstone, reported that her son heard a noise and looked out the window of her apartment to see Robie beating a cat, according to Claremont police. When Moonstone looked out the window, she saw Robie whipping her female cat, Buddha, with "a length of stiff cord or rope," the indictment said.

Moonstone, who lives in the apartment above Robie, found her cat lying injured on Robie's porch and immediately called police.

"I don't know what the cat did that irritated him," Claremont Police Capt. Colby Casey said, adding that a patrol officer who responded to the scene found a pile of animal feces on Robie's porch.  "That might have been what upset the guy," he said.

Moonstone brought Buddha to a nearby veterinary clinic, where the decision was made to euthanize her the following day due to the severity of her injuries, police said.

A necropsy conducted on Buddha showed that the cat had a concussion and dilated eyes, was hemorrhaging from the nose and lungs and had a piece of its liver missing. The autopsy was done "to establish the cat did not die of natural cases," Casey said.

Casey said there was no known dispute between the neighbors prior to the incident with Buddha.

Robie is to be arraigned in Sullivan County Superior Court at 9 a.m. Nov. 8.

Update 1/20/09:  Vanilla-Clove Moonstone wept on the witness stand as she described seeing her former neighbor whip her cat, Buddha, to the brink of death with a white cord in the summer of 2007.

Robie is standing trial on a charge of felony cruelty to animals for the alleged beating of Buddha outside his former residence on the first floor of the apartment building at 24 High St. in Claremont.

Moonstone and her 13-year-old son, Daniel Tyminski, testified they saw a shirtless Robie whipping a cat from their second-floor window. The cat was euthanized later that night, and an necropsy showed it died as the result of "severe trauma," according to witness testimony.

The defense contends the cat was hit by a car and placed on Robie's porch, and Moonstone's accusation is the product of bad blood between neighbors.

"Ms. Moonstone, I don't mean to be insensitive," public defender Michael Hulser said on cross-examination, "but your cat got run over, didn't it?" "No, it did not," Moonstone said.

"Shame on you! Mr. Robie didn't beat your cat, did he?" "I watched him do it," she said.

Tyminski said he was going to bed at around 8:30 p.m. the night of July 17, 2007, when he heard a noise outside.  "As he lay there," Assistant Sullivan County Attorney David Park said in his opening statement, "he began to hear what he described, and will describe, as a slapping sound. Slap, slap, slap."

Tyminski said he looked out his bedroom window and saw Robie whipping a cat. He went into the living room to tell his mother what he'd seen, and she went to the bedroom to see for herself, according to her testimony. She saw Robie hit the cat two more times and then poke it to see if it was dead, she said.  "It was two slaps and a poke," she said.

Moonstone, who said she had "possibly seven" cats when the incident occurred, went outside and found Buddha on Robie's porch gasping for breath, the cat's eyes bulging. She started to scream and cry, and she yelled to her son to call the police, she said.

Claremont police officer Justin Laffin responded. Robie told Laffin he "didn't beat any cat," and he'd been inside watching the Red Sox game that evening, Laffin testified. When Laffin asked him why his neighbors might accuse him of such a thing, he said, "I don't know," according to Laffin.

On Robie's porch, Laffin found a pile of cat feces near where Buddha had been found. He photographed the porch and the droppings, he said, but accidentally deleted the pictures before downloading them.

"Did you scoop up that pile and put it into an evidence bag or anything?" Park asked Laffin.  "No." "OK, good," Park said.

Following his arrest on the felony charge, Robie told police his brother-in-law might have struck a cat in the neighborhood with his truck that night. When questioned, the brother-in-law said he might have hit a cat, but "he didn't think he did," Laffin said.

Moonstone testified her children weren't allowed to associate with Robie's children, but there had been no confrontation between the two families.  "It just seemed that we had very different family values," she said.

Before the trial began in Sullivan County Superior Court, Judge John Arnold ruled the defense could not introduce evidence that Moonstone practices witchcraft because her beliefs are irrelevant to her credibility as a witness.

"Your honor, I think there's a vast difference between Christianity and witchcraft," Hulser argued before the ruling. "This goes to credibility."

The trial is scheduled to resume January 21st, 2009 with the defense presenting more witnesses. If convicted, Robie faces a maximum of seven years in state prison and a fine of up to $4,000.

Update 1/22/09:  After an hour and 20 minutes of deliberation, a Sullivan County Superior Court jury convicted Robie of whipping his neighbor's cat to death with a cord in July 2007.

Robie cried at the defense table and then embraced his wife and children after the jury foreperson announced the verdict. He faces a maximum penalty of seven years in state prison and a fine of up to $4,000 for the felony animal cruelty conviction. A sentencing hearing will be held within 60 days.

Vanilla-Clove Moonstone, the owner of Buddha, the dead cat, said the verdict was a bittersweet ending to a 17-month ordeal.

"Finally, there is justice for Buddha," she said, "but I feel bad for Bruce and his family ... His whole family is just torn apart by his actions." Assistant Sullivan County Attorney David Park, the prosecutor in the case, said he was "pleased with the outcome." He also said he had been in plea negotiations with Robie and his attorney, public defender Michael Hulser, prior to the trial.  "Negotiations had been ongoing for some time and were unsuccessful," Park said.

Hulser, who was unavailable for comment after the verdict, argued during trial that Buddha had been run over by a car and then placed on Robie's back porch. He said Robie was wrongfully accused because of bad blood between the two families.

"(Moonstone) didn't like the scumbags downstairs, her cat got run over and it was found on Bruce's porch, so the scumbags did it," he said during his closing argument.

Jamie Robie, Bruce's wife, said she told Moonstone, who did not allow her children to play with the Robie children, that her husband had been watching the Red Sox game that night and never went outside. "I said, 'I don't know what your problem is with our family, but my husband did not kill your cat,'" she said.

Dr. Kenneth Staples, a Claremont veterinarian who conducted the autopsy on Buddha, said the cat's injuries -- bleeding from the nose, dilated eyes and injuries to the lung and liver -- were consistent with a beating or with being run over.

"It's possible (the cat was run over), but you'd have to add conditions to that," he said. "If it had been run over by a car, there would be other symptoms." Hulser used a coaxial cable throughout the trial to demonstrate the implement the state alleged was used against the cat. If Robie had hit the cat with it once, he said, slapping the cable against the prosecution table, the cat would have run away.  "We heard no evidence that he put his foot on the cat and held the cat there, or that he hypnotized the cat," Hulser said.

Staples said that if the first strike had been hard enough, it could have immobilized the cat. "That would cause an awful lot of damage, no question about it," he said of the cable.

Police found a pile of cat feces on the Robie's' porch, near where Buddha's body had been found, Claremont police office Justin Laffin testified. Staples said it's common for animals to expel feces or urine just before death.  "I would expect to find that where the injuries occurred," he said.

During his closing argument, Park said Robie was frustrated with Moonstone's many cats and with her insisting that her children not associate with his.  "All of that toxic fire in his belly was propelling him on from the first beat or slap, you can be sure of that," he said. "And he proceeded to beat the excrement out of a female cat named Buddha." Park concluded by telling the jurors that Buddha deserved justice.  "No creature great or small deserved what befell Buddha the cat on July 17, 2007, at the hands of that man," he said, pointing to Robie.

Jurors said they relied on testimony from Staples, Laffin and Tyminski in arriving at the guilty verdict. Juror Melissa Dickerson of Claremont said the jury discounted the testimonies of Moonstone and Jamie Robie, based on inconsistencies with what those three witnesses said.  "I think it really was the credibility of the witnesses," Dickerson said.

Juror Wendy Rastallis of Newport said it didn't seem feasible that Moonstone and her son would concoct a tale about their neighbor whipping their cat with a cord.  "It just seemed like a very short time for them to have coordinated their stories," she said.

Superior Court Judge John Arnold ordered a pre-sentence investigation of Robie, which usually takes about 60 days. Although the conviction on the Class B felony charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 7 years in prison, Arnold could choose to order a lesser sentence. Hulser has 30 days to appeal the conviction if he chooses to do so.

Reference:

The Union Leader