(Michael Bessigano - Lake County Sheriff's Department)
(KFI) - 46-year-old Michael Bessigano from northwest Indiana is asking a federal judge to release him from prison if he undergoes chemical castration.
This week his attorney requested that the courts take into account his time already served in prison. She says he would undergo therapy and monthly injections of Lupron-Depot, a testosterone reducing drug.
Bessigano has been a federal inmate since January after he was arrested for violating his probation following a 2009 obscenity conviction by looking at gross materials on the internet.
He also has a long history of killing and sexually abusing animals.
In 1991 Bessigano was arrested after he was found in a chicken coop with dead birds at his feet. He was arrested a second time for breaking a rooster's neck and was found in a neighbor's goose pen trying to molest the birds.
He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and paid a $500 fine.
In 1993 Bessigano was found guilty of breaking into a barn, stealing a Rottweiler and then killing the dog by breaking its neck. He served two years in prison, and said he'd rather live with animals than people.
One month after his release, he was arrested for trying to steal a German Shepard.
His attorney Jennifer Soble wrote in a court filing:
"To the extent that Mr. Bessigano has accidentally injured or killed animals during the course of his sexual exploits, that harm is no greater than that imposed by meat-eaters and leather-wearers nationwide."
Really, Jennifer? You're going to argue that?
In 2002 Bessigano served four years in prison for plucking a chicken so that he could have sex with it in a motel room. He also killed the bird.
Soble went on her her filing:
Mr. Bessigano's history is unique; his entire history within both the federal and state systems is entirely animated by his unusual sexual preferences. Those preferences are almost certainly the result of Mr. Bessigano's remarkably traumatic childhood; unable to receive or seek affection from his parents, he sought that affection from animals."
While he was in jail he would sleep under his cot, paint cat-like stripes on his body, and make drawings referring himself as the "master of cats."
He also has been busted for downloading bestiality porn, sexually abusing a guinea fowl, and in 2014 was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years as a habitual offender.
Bessigano also admitted to sleeping with dead animals, including a raccoon, when he was a child.
Soble added in her filing:
"Mr. Bessigano poses no risk of harm whatsoever to the human members of his community."