LEWISTON – A man who shot a cat with a bow and arrow and killed the animal last year has been sent to jail for nearly a month.

Jonathan Thibodeau, 21, of Lewiston, was sentenced to 25 days in the county jail after he was convicted of animal cruelty.

In November last year, Thibodeau was drinking whiskey at a party on Marston Street when he stepped outside, grabbed a bow and arrow from a car, and shot at a cat, police said.

The cat belonged to the person who was hosting the party, according to investigators. The arrow lodged in its body, leaving it alive but wounded.

After the cat crawled through a window to its home, it was taken to an emergency animal clinic but could not be saved.

Investigators said Thibodeau admitted to shooting at the animal, but that he claimed he did not believe he would be able to hit it.

After he was convicted, Thibodeau was sentenced to 180 days in jail with all but 25 suspended. It was only one of several recent sentences handed down to people accused of mistreating animals.

Last month, 52-year-old Gary Monto was ordered to serve seven days in jail for beating his girlfriend’s cat with a broomstick and hurling it over a porch railing. That cat was also rushed to a clinic but had to be euthanized because of massive head injuries, investigators said.

On Thursday, a Randolph man was sentenced to 4 years in prison for intentionally backing his vehicle over a pet carrier with a pregnant cat inside.

The sentence handed down for 27-year-old John Witham was the stiffest ever in this state in a case of cruelty. A prosecutor said Witham had killed the cat in order to intimidate his girlfriend.

“Social science research has shown that people who are capable of doing something like this to an animal are capable of doing something similar to a person,” said Somerset-Kennebec District Attorney Evert Fowle.