Teen Sentenced To 9 Months Under New Animal Cruelty Law

The first King County resident to be charged with first-degree cruelty to an animal has been sentenced to nine months in jail for stabbing a cat 22 times and letting it suffer for several minutes before it died.

Michael Scott Siddons, 18, of Kent, was sentenced Friday in King County Superior Court.

Judge Robert Alsdorf handed down the nine-month term, which is in the top half of the standard penalty range of zero to 12 months, in hopes of sending a message to Siddons.

“You are 18, and when you do bad things like this, you are going to get locked up,” Alsdorf said. “I don’t see a better way to give you the message.”

Siddons had been caring for the cat for a friend when he killed it in October after it bit him and defecated in his house. He pleaded guilty Jan. 10.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done. … This has changed me,” he told the judge.

Siddons is the first King County resident to be charged under the state’s new “Pasado Law,” which is named after a donkey that was beaten to death in a Bellevue park in 1992.