Marlene Kess Avoiding NJ Community Service

Animal Abuser should do her community service: Petition

Please sign the petition to have Marlene Kess fulfill her Community Service in NJ. Why NJ and not NY? She was convicted of animal abuse in NJ. She obviously has no respect for the law since she is continuing the same lifestyle in Brooklyn. She shouldn't be around animals.

Sign the petition, she ought to fulfill her service in NJ. http://thepetitionsite.com/petition/896311889

Write to
Judge Watson
Appellate Court
221 Freeway Drive
East Orange, NJ 07108
CC: Prosecutor, Derrick Griffin

They're interested in more of what the public knows about her.

She's Another Animal Abuser Trying to Get off with slap on wrist

Convicted of animal abuse in East Orange, NJ Marlene Kess is in Park Slope with Kensington Kitties. She's been in denial about her crime, about the pictures posted by the NJAC.
Her Case is still in the Appellate Court.
Dear Judge Watson:

Marlene Kess has been fighting her conviction for animal abuse since 2005. The proof of her crime was all over her back yard. Living there only 9 months she accumulated 200 dead cats and left them in garbage bags in her back yard where they lay rotting until the community complained of the odor. Inside her home the situation was just as bad. She must know what she was doing was wrong because she lied twice about the hole that was being dug in her back yard to bury the bags. First she said it was for a swimming pool, and then claimed it was to plant a tree.

As the President of KittyKind, she claimed that cats only needed to go to the vet if they had open mouth breathing. By that time the cat is dying. All cats that I fostered had to go to the vet and under emergency situations that she promised she would reimburse me for. She never did and if I had not taken them to my vet, they would have died in my care with a vet one block away from me and I would have had to dispose of their corpses – which obviously she also would not do.

She is a con artist. After getting free vaccinations and spay/neuter for the cats that she adopts out she charges an adoption fee because she tells the public she paid for them. I could tell you more of her tactics having been fleeced by her. After her court trial she left KittyKind and claimed that the cats I had in my home were not foster cats of her organization.

At the very least she should pay her fines and do the community service imposed in NJ. She seems to be of the opinion that everything will just go away if left silent long enough. Please don't make it easy for her to continue living off these animals and thumbing her nose at the law. Marlene Kess is in Park Slope associated with Kensington Kitties. They park their van in front of a Key Food store on Seventh Avenue on Carroll Street.

Thank you,

cc: Prosecutor
Derrick Griffin
Appellete Court
221 Freeway Drive
East Orange, NJ 07108

A petition on line will follow to this effect. http://thepetitionsite.com/petition/896311889

The SPCA, which enforces the state's animal cruelty laws, charged Marlene Kess with 38 counts of failing to properly shelter cats.

Neighbor complaining about a stench, city health inspectors found 48 cats inside the house -- 38 of them in one room -- and more than 200 dead cats stuffed into garbage bags in the back yard.

The sight of so many decomposing corpses -- and the fetid odor they produced -- sickened animal-welfare officers and others who responded to the two-story home on State Street."

"The smell was horrible."

Kess, seen arguing with animal-welfare officials outside the home, declined to comment.
Cited for several East Orange health code violations:
1. among them keeping an unlawful number of animals, harboring dead animals and
2. creating a potential environmental hazard by keeping the corpses on her property
3. the SPCA charged her with 38 counts of failing to properly shelter cats.
4. cats being locked together in a front room.
5. Some of the cats were healthy, while others were ill.

Under state regulations, anyone keeping large numbers of animals must separate the sick from the healthy."

Examples of neglect are starvation, dehydration, parasite infestations, allowing a collar to grow into an animal’s skin, inadequate shelter in extreme weather conditions, and failure to seek veterinary care when an animal needs medical attention.

Exigent circumstances may require that the animal is removed from the site immediately and taken in for urgent medical care.

A. Animal hoarding, sometimes referred to as "collecting", continues to struggle with public misconceptions. Members of the community and even law enforcement often view hoarders to be "someone who meant well but the situation got out of hand," conjuring images of the sweet cat lady down the street.

B. While their intentions may indeed have been good, the reality of hoarding is far from sweet, and is often quite horrific.

C. Hoarders often have hundreds of animals in their home, living in filth and without veterinary care.

D. It is not uncommon to discover several hundred animals in various states of neglect at one location.

E. It is also very common to find vast collections of other junk and garbage on the premises, as well as many layers of feces throughout the home.

F. In the majority of hoarding cases, the hoarder firmly believes not only that they have done nothing wrong, but that the animals cannot survive without their "care".

G. In many instances, hoarders will even be reluctant to relinquish the decomposing corpses of animals that died.

H. Dead animals are frequently found in the freezer or refrigerator, or

I. laying around the house, embedded in the carpeting, etc. At times, dead animals have been left in the home so long that they have become mummified.

J. In 2005 the petition read:
We petition that Kess undergo psychological testing and counseling and that she not be able to keep 48 cats in her home until the investigation has been completed.

She should at fulfill the community service sentence imposed by the Court.
www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/896311889


Here's something that got flagged a lot on Craigslist:

Marlene Kess Flees NJ to Resume Business as Usual in Brooklyn

This is a Community Service for the General Public. More important than with anyone else get foster forms and information for any cat fostered or adopted. (Free on http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeyfg4f/kittycatfosterpitfalls )

People who have spotted Marlene Kess (convicted of animal abuse in NJ) and now living off kittens in Park Slope want you to know.

According to shocked volunteers, when she was busted while at KittyKind she also had cats crated in her garage, which the NJAC seem to have overlooked.

Because of an error the Judge couldn't do more than fine her and give her community service to perform - but even that was too much for Marlene Kess to do in atonement. Atonement for what? She denies doing anything wrong.

See: http://ahscares.org/showarchive.asp?=129
Marlene Kess (ex-Director of KittyKind) was convicted of animal abuse and fled NJ (where she would not be able to live off income from "rescued" cats) into Brooklyn. She wormed her way into a free rent situation with a KittyKind volunteer and seems to be injecting her poison into the girl's rescue group in Brooklyn.

Marlene Kess claimed that many of the pictures taken of her "shelter" in NJ were set up.

When her first trial didn't work out the way she wanted it to go, she changed lawyers claiming they didn't know what they were doing. Everyone was wrong except for her - the Judge didn't see eye to eye with her either.

Find the Court transcript (all 11 pages) in Google.
Key in "State v. Kess*NJ".

Read for yourself how her lawyer split hairs to reduce her fees but could not erase the verdict. They tried to turn Fiction into Fact with no Success. Here's a FACT few know: She was evicted from her apartment on 145 street in Manhattan and that was when she moved to NJ. She had carriers with cats in them on top of cages. There was no separation of sick and healthy even then.

She is a criminal and like a criminal has no conscience, she just picks up and continues business as usual. She never lost a drop of sleep over the cats that died in her home AND garage and were decaying in her back yard in garbage bags! Read some of the preposterous denials she made to the investigators and later to the Judge.

Don't let time fade away the atrocity of her actions in 2005. How many times does she need to repeat her acts of cruelty to animals before she finally goes to jail? How many other rescue groups does she need to damage with her cold hearted actions? Does she think she's above the law? I guess so, as long as she has an enabler she will continue to think that whatever she does is ok. An enabler such as someone who helps pay her court fees, someone who helps her get a lawyer, and people who tell her what she wants to hear or who do not tell her that what she has done and wants to continue to do is not helping the animals but using them for her ego and livelihood.

KittyKind itself doesn't have better ethics. Their next director, Hilary Harris and Kess' best friend, claimed not to know about the many cats being fostered in a crowded, one bedroom apartment by a WTC survivor. Ms. Harris claimed with a straight face that they were not KittyKind cats and with the support of the Mayor's Alliance managed to wiggle out of the responsibility of providing food and veterinary care for the cats in that home that KittyKind managed to turn into a shelter. Her email to me to provide food and vet care for a cat if I would keep him was rescinded in a letter to the vet by KittyKind's Treasurer (now also replaced). These can be scanned and posted at some later date.

The next Director, Cathy Cristle, also claimed that there were no KittyKind cats being fostered by this woman. A few more changes down the line in Board of Directors members and KittyKind continues to operate out of the same location; Marlene Kess continues to hide behind another rescue group in Brooklyn along with her friend Hilary, and I continue to receive emails from people who have been wronged by KittyKind and/or Marlene Kess.

Paper trails prevent "misunderstandings" or denying that a thing was said. Signed paper holds up better than words that fade into the very air moments after being spoken. Promises are made to be broken. A picture is worth a thousand words - yes, keep pictures too!