CAMPBELL — A local man has pleaded to misdemeanor charges related to the theft of a neighbor’s cats

On Sept. 5, James Lavernuick, 76, of Homestead Place, pleaded no contest in Campbell Municipal Court to one charge of obstructing official business, a second-degree misdemeanor, while a charge of theft was reduced to criminal mischief, a third-degree misdemeanor, to which he also pleaded no contest. A charge of falsification was dismissed.

The Campbell police report states that Lavernuick could have avoided all the trouble by simply returning the cats. Instead, he was sentenced to one year of nonreporting probation, $200 in fines and ordered to pay $200 dollars in restitution to his neighbor for stealing and giving away two cats that she left in his care.

The report states that the woman brought them over to his house a couple days before Thanksgiving because family members were going to be bringing pets and she worried about too many animals causing the mother and kitten stress. Lavernuick said she could store the cats in his garage.

The next day, when the woman learned that some family had decided not to bring pets for the holiday, she went to Lavernuick’s house to bring her cats back home, only to find that he had given them away.

The report, written by Campbell Patroman Jim Conroy, details the extensive efforts Lavernuick made to deceive his neighbor and police about what had happened to the cats.

Conroy made the news earlier this year when his four-year investigation led to the conviction of Union County humane officer Steffan Baldwin on more than 30 felony counts, after he took people’s dogs to his nonprofit rehabilitation facility and then euthanized them and lied about it. He also took donations made to his charity to furnish his lavish lifestyle, solicited a bribe from a Cambell couple — whose complaint led to Conroy’s investigation of Baldwin — and bought a gun with stolen money.

Much like Baldwin, Lavernuick told Conroy multiple stories about what happened to the cats, all of which turned out to be untrue when Conroy looked into them.

“I stated to Lavernuik that if he … could just return the cats to his neighbor, this can be resolved with no further action needed. Lavernuik stated that he didn’t know where the cats were because his friend … gave them to some Amish people,” Conroy wrote.

Lavernuick told his neighbor and Conroy that he had given the cats to a friend, who in turn gave them to some Amish people he saw walking around the Tanglewood golf course in Pulaski Township, Pennsylvania, on a cold, rainy day. The golf course was closed on the day in question.

The report states that once Conroy reached out to the friend, that man denied having anything to do with the cats, and told Conroy that he told Lavernuick he did not want to be involved.

“He wants me to bail him out is what he wants me to do,” the man told Conroy. “I don’t know why he got me involved in this…I didn’t give no cats to no Amish. I didn’t see no cats.”

The man told Conroy another friend heard him tell Lavernuick he did not want any cats and did not care to help Lavernuick rehome them. The second friend then corroborated that for Conroy.

At other points, Lavernuick said the cats were not his neighbor’s at all, that they were both discussing what to do with some feral cats, that she dropped them off and told him to do whatever he wanted with them, and that she was drunk when she did so.

All of these were lies. Conroy also obtained copies of text messages between the neighbors, which proved that the cats belonged to the woman and that she had asked Lavernuick to watch them for just a couple days during the week of Thanksgiving.

The report states that the woman had let Lavernuick take two kittens from her cat’s litter last fall, and those two went to two of his family members. But Lavernuick said his son and granddaughter wanted the remaining kitten, named Minnie, and the woman told him she was keeping Minnie and the mother cat, Missie.

Conroy noted in the report, describing the text exchanges: “At no point did Lavernuick ever refute (her) statements they were (her) cats. Lavernuick did not state or argue the cats were his, belonged to him, or he was the owner of them.”

The report states that the woman is devastated by the loss of the cats. She did not return a call from The Vindicator seeking comment on the outcome of the case.