A Muscovite faces up to five years in prison for attacking a policeman with a cat last year, the Baza Telegram channel reported Wednesday.

On Oct. 4, 2018, Gennady Scherbakov was drunkenly sitting in his apartment building’s stairwell when his neighbors called the police with a noise complaint against him.

When an officer arrived to tell him to go home, Scherbakov grabbed a nearby cat and shoved it into the policeman’s face. The cat reportedly grabbed onto the officer’s face with its claws, badly scratching him.

Scherbakov spent the rest of the night in a jail cell. It’s not clear whether the cat was hurt during the altercation.

More than a year later, authorities have opened a criminal case against Scherbakov on charges of violence against police, Baza reported.

Scherbakov denied attacking the officer with the cat, saying it jumped on the policeman on its own, Baza reported. If found guilty, Scherbakov would face up to five years in prison.

The cat is far from the first feline to become entangled in Russian crime. In mid-October, a cat that was considered a key piece of evidence in a drug-smuggling case escaped from where it was being held in captivity south of Moscow.

(c) The Moscow Times