Nebraska ‘cat bong’ man in trouble with the law again

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Acea Schomaker, the 20-year-old Nebraska man who made headlines a few months ago for allegedly placing a hyper cat in a homemade bong-type device, is making headlines again. (Fortunately, this time there are no animals involved.)

Police responding to a disturbance call Saturday night found 1.7 grams of a substance that looked rather like marijuana in one of Schomaker’s pockets, Omaha’s Action 3 News reports. (He’d told an Associated Press journalist that he was swearing off the drug after the March cat-bong incident.) Schomaker was also cited for being a minor in possession of alcohol.

Schomaker and his girlfriend, 22-year-old Marissa Vieux, were charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty in the March case. He’s admitted to placing the 6-month-old cat in a duct-taped plastic box through which he smoked marijuana with a garden hose on three occasions, but insisted that he meant no harm. Instead, he said, he meant to calm the cat -- a rescue that apparently came with aggressive tendencies.

‘I know for sure this isn’t the first time someone has done this,’ Schomaker told the Associated Press. ‘I’m just the first one to get caught.’ He and Vieux have pleaded not guilty in that case. The cat, a female named Shadow, was seized and taken to a humane society.

No word on how the recent brush with the law may affect the animal cruelty case, if at all. Schomaker also faces drug charges related to the cat-bong case.

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-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Schomaker in a photo by the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Department