PORT ANGELES – A $5,000 bench warrant has been issued in Clallam County Superior Court for Julie Yu, who left the courthouse Thursday before she could be served with criminal charges linked to 31 cats and kittens seized from her mobile home Oct. 10.
Yu, 52, was scheduled for formal arraignment on several charges, including three counts of first-degree animal cruelty and five counts of second-degree animal cruelty.
Each first-degree count has a maximum sentence of five years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.
Each second-degree charge carries a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail, or a $1,000 fine, as well as a two-year probationary period and forfeiture of the animals.
In 1994, the state Legislature passed Pasado’s Law, which made first-degree animal cruelty a felony.
It was named for a donkey at Kelsey Creek Farm in Bellevue that was beaten and tortured to death by a 16-year-old boy and two men in April 1992.
Yu was at the courthouse Thursday for a hearing to discuss her civil petition to get the cats back.
But upon seeing a prosecutor in the courtroom with documents to be served for Friday’s scheduled arraignment, she fled the courthouse – without being served.
About 31 cats and kittens were removed last month from Yu’s single-wide mobile home at the Welcome Inn on U.S. Highway 101 in western Port Angeles.
