79-year-old woman sentenced to 10 days in jail for feeding stray cats

GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — A 79-year-old woman from Ohio will have to spend 10 days in jail for feeding stray cats.

Nancy Segula of Garfield Heights said she started feeding them a few years ago when the cats would visit her on her back porch.

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"I used to have a neighbor that had a couple of cats and he moved away so he left them. I would always feed them and care for them because I was worried about them and I'm a cat lover," Segula told WJW.

But Segula's neighbors called the authorities who issued her a citation.

She received three others. The final one told her to appear in front of a judge who sentenced her to 10 days in the Cuyahoga County Jail. She has to report on Aug. 11, WJW reported.

Segula's son, Dave Pawlowski, told WJW he couldn't believe his mother's sentence.

"I'm sure people hear about the things that happen downtown in that jail. And they are going to let my 79-year-old mother go there?" Pawlowski told WJW.

Segula was sentenced under an ordinance that makes it illegal to feed stray dogs and cats, but she doesn't think she should go to jail for helping animals.

"It's too much of a sentence for me for what I'm doing. When there are so many people out there that do bad things," Segula told WJW.

Cox Media Group