Kitten Stomper Gets Probation

BAKERSFIELD —  A man convicted of animal cruelty for stomping on a kitten, then tossing it to his pit bull terrier to kill has been fined nearly $1,000 but will not have to spend any time in jail.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Clarence Westra Jr. rejected a Probation Department recommendation Thursday that William Robert Graham, 22, of Fellows spend 10 weekends in jail for the felony conviction. Instead, Graham was fined and placed on three years’ probation.

His estranged wife, Kathy, gave sheriff’s deputies this account of the incident that began at 2:30 a.m. last Oct. 27, two days after the couple separated:

Graham called the home in Taft where she was staying and said he was coming to beat her up. Kathy Graham and a girlfriend were waiting on the front porch when he arrived.

The couple argued, and Graham grabbed the kitten out of her hand, threw it on the ground and jumped up and down on it.

She tried to rescue the pet, but Graham pushed her down and pulled her hair.

Then, he threw the cat to his pit bull terrier and told the dog to “eat it up.”

Kathy Graham said the kitten was dead by the time she pried it away from the pit bull, which also bit her.

But Graham told Deputy Probation Officer Mark L. Jacobus that the case was “blown out of proportion,” and that the dog killed the cat without him urging it to do so.

Graham was accused of spouse beating, resisting arrest and animal cruelty but pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to the cruelty charge. The other counts were dismissed.

His wife told the probation officer she and Graham are still friends and she did not want him sentenced to jail.