HAGERSTOWN, Md.-
A man convicted of killing a kitten by throwing it into a fire during a domestic dispute has moved back in with his girlfriend and her five cats, prompting a charge of violating his probation.
Robert Lynn Tomlin, 22, of Smithsburg, was being held without bond at the Washington County jail Thursday, eight days after the Humane Society of Washington County told a state Division of Parole and Probation agent that he was living with Kelli Green and her animals.
Tomlin could be jailed for up to 18 months, the suspended portion of a Nov. 13 sentence that included three years of supervised probation. The terms of Tomlin’s probation included a provision that he have no contact with animals or pets.
No hearing date on the probation-violation charge has been set.
Tomlin pleaded guilty Nov. 13 to one count of aggravated animal cruelty stemming from a sheriff’s deputy’s report that the remains of a kitten were found in a smoldering outdoor fire pit at the house Tomlin shared with Green on July 2. As part of a plea bargain, the state dropped a second-degree assault charge alleging that Tomlin had hit Green.
Green initially told police that she and Tomlin had argued, causing her to leave the house, and that when she returned she found the remains of four, 1-week-old kittens in the pit. She recanted the statement a month later.
Green said at Tomlin’s sentencing hearing that she never wanted to see him again, The (Hagerstown) Herald-Mail reported.
The newspaper reported that Tomlin’s grandmother, with whom he was supposed to have lived after the sentencing, told the probation agent that he had never moved in with her. The probation agent wrote in court documents that Green had left the agent a telephone message stating that “she has reconsidered and would like contact” with Tomlin.