NEW YORK – A Manhattan judge has declared a hung jury at the trial of a former minor league baseball player accused of beating, stomping and kicking his girlfriend's cat to death during a drunken fury.
Juror Doug Collman told reporters that the vote after five days of deliberations had been 11 to 1 in favor of conviction on aggravated animal cruelty, a felony carrying a prison term of up to two years.
Prosecutors said Joseph Petcka complained that his girlfriend loved the cat more than she loved him. The defense said Petcka overreacted when he was bitten, but did not intentionally kill the declawed feline.
Petcka pitched in the New York Mets' minor league system in 1992. He later acted in a paper-towel commercial and had small roles in "Sex and the City" and other television shows.
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