Trapped Cat Leads Police to Garden of Marijuana

Talk about a clear case of entrapment. Police arrested Gerald Jerome, 51, of Sunland on Tuesday after animal control officers found several steel-jawed traps scattered around his back yard--apparently to keep animals from gnawing on a lush garden of tomatoes, bell peppers and marijuana.

“He had a real nice garden up there,” said Lt. Robert A. Pena of East Valley Animal Control. “The cats and opossums were probably getting into his vegetables and his marijuana. He was just trying to protect his hobby, I guess.”

Authorities called to the house in the 11300 block of Alethea Drive seized 15 traps, several guns, a crossbow and four pounds of marijuana, apparently packaged for sale, Pena said.

Jerome was arrested on charges of cruelty to animals and possession of a controlled substance. He was expected to be arraigned in Van Nuys Municipal Court today.

An animal control officer first spotted the traps about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday after a neighbor called saying she was bitten while trying to free a feral cat from an illegal steel-jawed, leg-hold trap. The neighbor said the cat had slipped through her fence from Jerome’s back yard.

After capturing the cat, animal control Officer Eric Gardner went into Jerome’s yard and confiscated eight traps--seven of which were set. Gardner then obtained a warrant to search the house.

“We don’t go out every day and serve search warrants, but this was unusual,” Pena said. “These traps are really cruel.”

Police from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division accompanied animal control officers back to Jerome’s home and found six more traps, one of which contained the badly decomposed remains of an opossum, and marijuana seedlings in the garden, authorities said.

Several bags of dried marijuana were later found in the house, along with the weapons, according to reports.