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Posted: Wednesday, 13 May 2009 7:29AM
Animal sex offender gets prison
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May 13, 2009
(CROWN POINT, Ind.) A Hobart, Ind., man who twice served time for killing animals now will spend nearly three years in federal prison for downloading images of people having sex with animals.
Michael Bessigano likely will serve his sentence in a Boston-area facility for male offenders with mental problems.
U.S. Judge Philip Simon on Tuesday sentenced Bessigano to 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release, a term at the low end of federal guidelines.
Simon two weeks ago threw out a plea agreement that would have seen Bessigano serve only 24 months, stating that Bessigano's history did not seem to make him a candidate for a below-guidelines sentence.
Simon has asked the federal bureau of prisons to place Bessigano at Federal Medical Center Devens, and also that Bessigano participate in therapy for sex offenders.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bernard Van Wormer said the sentence was appropriate for Bessigano, who served time prison for killing a neighbor's rottweiler in St. John Township in 1993 and was jailed again in 2001 for killing a chicken, and having sex with it.
He was badly beaten in the Porter County Jail while awaiting sentencing in 2001, and has been in and out of psychological treatment for schizophrenia since childhood, his mother has said.
Bessigano has told investigators in the past that he believes he is an animal trapped in a human's body.
"I think the sentence was appropriate, given the facts of the case," Van Wormer said.
Bessigano was arrested in June 2008 after federal agents found images of bestiality on his computer hard drive after Bessigano's state parole officers requested a search.
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