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(Brigham City-AP) -- A Utah judge has ordered an unusual sentence for a woman convicted of animal cruelty.
Judge Clint Judkins gave Sydney McDonald a short jail sentence and a fines of almost eight-thousand dollars -- but he said if the woman ever owns a cat again, she's going back to jail.
McDonald was guilty of 59 misdemeanor animal cruelty charges, in what the judge called a case of "cat hoarding." The ailing animals were found in a trailer near the town of Paradise. Most of them had to be euthanized.
Some of the cats were strays that she had taken in, but others had apparently been trapped and taken from neighbors.
Judge Judkins told her that for the rest of her life -- she's not going to have anything to do with animals.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
