SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California man averted jail time Friday after he drunkenly trespassed at a preschool final yr and attacked a pet tortoise named Michelangelo, The San Jose Mercury News reported.
The 42-year-old man was additionally linked to different break-ins on the East San Jose college, and stole hundreds of {dollars} of things within the days earlier than and after the assault on Michelangelo, a decades-old African sulcata, in January 2021.
The college’s proprietor found Michelangelo bleeding final yr after the assault, impaled within the shell with 6-inch (15-centimeter) shards from a wood backyard gate put up. The man had additionally shoved a rake deal with between the animal’s head and leg and broke flood lamps and put the shattered glass on the tortoise’s again, The Mercury News reported.
A decide sentenced the person Friday to 2 years of probation and obligatory psychological well being and substance abuse therapy. He had pleaded no contest to prices of animal abuse, industrial housebreaking and vandalism earlier this yr, the newspaper reported.
The man is now additionally banned from having any animals for 10 years. His public defender mentioned his shopper’s conduct in opposition to the tortoise was the results of extreme intoxication, relatively than animal cruelty, the newspaper wrote.
The preschool didn’t return the newspaper’s request for remark Friday.
