A Columbia woman accused of hoarding more than 75 dead and dying cats in the townhouse she shared with her elderly mother was ordered Tuesday to undergo a mental evaluation that will determine whether she can assist in her defense without being influenced by her mother.
Nese Icgoren, 52, was charged with 151 counts of animal cruelty in August 2006, along with her 81-year-old mother Ayten Icgoren, after Animal Control raided their urine-soaked townhouse on Swan Point Way.
Icgoren’s case was shelved while prosecutors secured convictions for her mother, but evidence of another cat in the home, prompted them to re-open the daughter’s case.
“My client is between a rock and a hard place because her mother is the co-defendant,” said defense attorney Esther Benaroya on Tuesday.
“My concern is that her relationship with her mother, the co-defendant, may be unduly influencing her ability to assist me in her defense.”
Benaroya said her client “had very little decision-making power” in caring for the cats because she was obligated to respect her mother’s wishes.
“Her mother failed to provide medical treatment to these poor animals, so to what extent is my client truly an accomplice? What could she have done to force her mother to take them for medical treatment?”
“They’re suggesting my client should be criminally charged because she should have called Animal Control on her own mother. A moral obligation is different than a legal obligation.”
Howard Circuit Judge Lenore Gelfman ordered Nese Icgoren to see a psychiatrist at Springfield Hospital Center, because the state’s psychiatrist with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene expressed a conflict of interest having already evaluated the mother.
“I didn’t want the evaluator painting the daughter with the same brush that she painted the mother,” Benaroya said.
The mother is awaiting sentencing in January for the animal cruelty conviction that she unsuccessfully appealed.
Nese Icgoren’s trial is scheduled for April.
