A Montgomery County judge has ordered a bench warrant for a 51-year-old Upper Gwynedd woman accused of leaving a cat to suffer in a leg-hold trap for days, after she failed to show up for her preliminary hearing. Meredith Ziemba, who lives on the 600 block of North Wales Road, faces felony aggravated cruelty to animals along with misdemeanor cruelty and a summary charge tied to denying the animal food and water. She was free on $25,000 unsecured bail before missing her court date.
The case began after police received an anonymous report on June 10 about a cat trapped near Ziemba's property, according to North Penn Now. Upper Gwynedd Township police visited the property on June 11 and found a gray cat lying beneath a tree, its left front paw caught in a leg-hold trap anchored by a short chain. The cat had dried blood around its left eye and no food or water within reach, and investigators alleged Ziemba knew the animal was trapped and seriously injured but did not get it food, water, shelter or veterinary care.
A witness told police she visited Ziemba's home the evening of June 9 and was shown a photo of the gray cat lying near a tree with its paw caught in the trap, taken at about 11:23 p.m. that night. The witness said she heard Ziemba and another person discussing a cat caught in what they described as a bear trap, and that Ziemba directed someone to take care of the cat and make sure it's dead. When the witness raised concerns, Ziemba allegedly told her, “don't even worry about it, it's dead anyway,” and separately claimed the cat was wild, had a broken leg, and could not be removed from the trap. The cat appears to have remained trapped from at least late on June 9 until its rescue on June 11, according to the same account.
Officers Cut the Trap's Chain Amid Punishing Heat
When police arrived, they had to use landscaping tools to break the trap's chain to free the animal, per the report. The rescue happened as the area baked in temperatures reaching 93 degrees with high humidity, and the cat's trapped paw had suffered a crushing injury so severe that several toes were attached only by skin, with maggots found inside the wound. Officers transported the cat to an animal hospital with the trap still attached to its paw.
Veterinarians ultimately removed the cat's left eye and several toes. Investigators separately alleged that 53-year-old Steven A. Buchecker, who lives on the 700 block of Rosemont Avenue in Upper Gwynedd, shot the same gray cat with metal pellets. One pellet reportedly entered the cat's left eyelid, ruptured its eye, and traveled into its neck near the trachea, while a second projectile was recovered near the cat's spine. A witness had reported hearing that the cat had been shot in an eye. The cat's total medical treatment came to $5,789.05, and the animal has since been rehomed under the name Harvey.
Second Trap and a Decomposed Fox Found Nearby
Police also found a decomposed fox and a second trap concealed beneath leaves at the scene, adding another disturbing layer to the investigation. Under Pennsylvania's Game Code, it is unlawful to use certain body-gripping or serrated leg-hold traps outside watercourses or to leave a set trap unvisited for more than 36 hours without releasing any captured animal, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. State wildlife guidance also requires that live-traps set for nuisance animals in residential areas allow for the immediate release of non-target domestic animals like neighborhood cats, per the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Buchecker is charged with felony aggravated cruelty to animals and witness intimidation, along with misdemeanor terroristic threats, cruelty to animals and harassment, and a summary neglect of animals count. Investigators allege he threatened the person who reported the abuse to police. Under Pennsylvania law, intimidating or threatening a witness in a criminal case is graded as a felony matching the highest charge in the underlying case, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly's statutory framework, which is why he faces such serious exposure on top of the animal cruelty allegations.
Buchecker Surrendered After News Report
Buchecker is currently held on $10,000 cash bail and remains jailed in Montgomery County. He surrendered to Upper Gwynedd police on an outstanding arrest warrant in August after NBC10 Philadelphia broadcast a report detailing the search for him. He later appeared at his own preliminary hearing, and all charges against him have been held for county court arraignment, as have all charges against Ziemba.
Buchecker has a prior criminal history in the county. In 2023, felony burglary, strangulation, and other charges against him were dismissed after a Montgomery County District Attorney's Office spokesperson said the woman involved ceased cooperating with prosecutors; he separately pleaded guilty that year to a summary harassment charge and was ordered to pay the costs of prosecution, receiving no further penalty. Federal researchers have documented a strong correlation between domestic violence or strangulation history and later acts of animal cruelty, according to the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, offering context for how investigators weigh such patterns.
What Happens Next in Common Pleas Court
Ziemba has retained Colmar attorney Matthew Taylor Wilkov. Magisterial District Judge John D. Kessler had set her preliminary arraignment, but after she failed to appear for the hearing, Upper Gwynedd Township police sent a warrant request to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court seeking her apprehension. Under Pennsylvania procedure, a bench warrant issued after a failure to appear remains active indefinitely until the defendant is taken into custody, and can trigger bail revocation, according to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania's rules on the process.
Both defendants face third-degree felony exposure under Pennsylvania's 2017 Libre's Law overhaul, which made intentional torture or serious bodily injury to an animal punishable by up to seven years in prison and fines up to $15,000, per FindLaw. The law also requires that anyone convicted of animal cruelty forfeit legal ownership of the victimized animal and can be ordered to pay restitution for veterinary bills, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund — a framework already reflected in Harvey's permanent rehoming and the nearly $5,800 in vet costs tied to his case. More than 6,000 animal cruelty cases have been prosecuted statewide since Libre's Law took effect, according to the Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus, part of a wave of felony-level enforcement Hoodline has tracked in recent kitten dumping case elsewhere in the state. A Change.org petition demanding full prosecution in the case has also drawn local signatures since news of Harvey's rescue spread in August. As with all pending criminal cases, both Ziemba and Buchecker are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
