The Brooklyn woman convicted of hoarding rabbits could actually be crazy enough to avoid jail. Obsessed animal lover Dorota Trec underwent a court-ordered psychiatric exam Wednesday – two months after she was found guilty of abusing 100 rabbits that lived outside her Gowanus home in a trial at which she acted as her own lawyer. The official results will be released later in February, but Trec, who faces up to two years behind bars, hinted that she won’t be doing hard time. “I think this is leading to not putting me in prison,” Trec, 36, said outside the Brooklyn Supreme courtroom. She believes she’ll instead be ordered to “come for treatment [by] a psychologist.” Trec, who was charged with mistreating 125 of the furballs, represented herself during the wacky three-week jury trial. The Polish-born bunny breeder said the person who evaluated her “was very surprised I did the case myself and that the same person who goes for an evaluation is allowed to do [a] trial.” Earlier this month, Judge Curtis Farber said he was worried about “serious mental health issues” and ordered Trec to undergo the psych exam before he handed down his sentence. “I am trying very hard to think of an appropriate sentence in your case,” he told her at the Jan. 13 hearing. “I am not sick,” Trec shouted to the judge. “I am a very intelligent person.” In December, the ASPCA came to seize 45 bunnies of the 90 Trec had from her yard. She claims she’s been trying to give the remaining furry creatures away ever since. “I am always going to have animals around. Who can stop me? They will have to put me in jail,” Trec said Wednesday. “If [Judge Farber] puts me in prison, I will continue to work on plans” to build a bunny sanctuary.
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Dorota Trec was sentenced Friday in Brooklyn Criminal Court after she was convicted in November of abusing some 100 rabbits she kept in a squalid yard in the Gowanus section. She had faced up to two years incarceration. Judge Curtis Farber told Trec that she can’t keep any pets for five years and must undergo psychiatric treatment. If she violates those terms, she faces a year behind bars. She also has to pay the ASPCA more than $20,000 for veterinary treatment for the bunnies.
Bonkers Brooklyn bunny hoarder Dorota Trec says she was keeping the creatures as part of a 16-year “genetic” breeding program — and would have made “millions of dollars” by creating “blue and pastel rabbits.” Trec has been charged with animal cruelty for letting 176 now-confiscated rabbits live behind a Gowanus tire shop in a squalid, droppings-strewn “garden.” But in an interview one day before Easter, she claimed there was a scientific method to her hopping madness. “I do research a lot of Darwin,” Trec, 35, said Saturday. “These rabbits are developed by me. They’ve all originated from the Netherland dwarf and the Belgium hare. After many years, you can start to see the results.” She said she would get six more rabbits — which she plans to rescue “from the slaughterhouse” to restock her “garden.” “Hopefully, I won’t get arrested, because I was already arrested,” she joked. Trec announced her Frankenbunny claim in a bizarre $2 billion lawsuit she filed last week to get her “free-range” bunnies back from the ASPCA. “Petitioner works with genetic material developing new breeds of rabbits, for example, rabbits that are small, fit, having somewhat big ears,” she wrote in the self-filed suit, which seeks cash damages from the animal-rights activists who ratted her out. “Petitioner also develops [a] number of different colors for rabbits, having special interest in blue and pastel rabbits.” “This project is advanced now and it is worth millions of dollars.” Trec says she would spend at least four hours a day working with her “herds,” including playing her flute for them. Authorities counter that many of the rabbits were sick and injured, some with syphilis and bite wounds. Meanwhile, there was bad news for bunny lovers. The rabbits remain wards of the state and will not be available for Easter adoptions. “They are still considered evidence in a pending criminal case . . . Until the court resolves ownership issues, the rabbits cannot be made available for adoption,” said a spokeswoman for the ASPCA, which is caring for the creatures at partner veterinary facilities. She wanted to make candy-colored Easter Bunnies.
