<p>BOCA RATON — Police shut down an illegal exotic petting zoo after discovering a man had been kidnapping neighborhood cats and claiming they were rare &#8220;miniature panthers&#8221; from South America.</p> <p>Russell &#8220;Rusty&#8221; Patterson, 42, had been operating &#8220;Patterson&#8217;s Rare Feline Experience&#8221; from his backyard for two months, charging visitors $25 per person to pet what he advertised as &#8220;critically endangered micro-panthers&#8221; and &#8220;Brazilian shadow cats.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;They were just regular cats,&#8221; said Animal Control Officer Sandra Martinez. &#8220;He had a tabby he was calling &#8216;El Tigre Pequeño&#8217; and an orange cat named &#8216;The Sunset Predator.&#8217; One of them was wearing a breakaway collar that said &#8216;Mittens.'&#8221;</p> <p>Patterson&#8217;s operation included elaborate backstories for each &#8220;exotic&#8221; animal, complete with printed fact sheets claiming they were rescued from the Amazon rainforest. He had constructed fake habitats with plastic plants from Home Depot and played rainforest sounds from a Bluetooth speaker.</p> <p>The scam was discovered when a woman recognized her missing cat, Mr. Whiskers, being presented as &#8220;Fernando the Fierce, last of the Peruvian Night Stalkers.&#8221; She had been searching for him for three weeks after he disappeared from her yard.</p> <p>&#8220;He told me Fernando was extremely rare and could never be released into the wild because he&#8217;d been hand-raised by indigenous tribes,&#8221; the owner said. &#8220;My cat is eight years old and afraid of ceiling fans.&#8221;</p> <p>Investigators found Patterson had &#8220;collected&#8221; 17 neighborhood cats, giving them all exotic names and elaborate fictional origins. His star attraction was a fat Persian he claimed was a &#8220;Arctic Snow Leopard Variant&#8221; worth $50,000 on the black market.</p> <p>Patterson had even created identification cards for each cat with made-up scientific names. &#8220;Mittens&#8221; was listed as &#8220;Panthera Domesticus Rare-icus&#8221; and described as &#8220;extremely dangerous when provoked, though currently docile due to Patterson&#8217;s expert handling.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;People were believing it,&#8221; said Officer Martinez. &#8220;He had over 200 visitors and made roughly $5,000. One couple asked if they could adopt a &#8216;micro-panther&#8217; for $800.&#8221;</p> <p>The operation included a gift shop selling &#8220;authentic South American cat treats&#8221; (Fancy Feast in unmarked containers) and &#8220;rare feline photography permits&#8221; for an additional $10.</p> <p>Patterson&#8217;s defense claimed he genuinely believed the cats were exotic species because &#8220;they all acted really mysterious and standoffish, which regular cats don&#8217;t do.&#8221; This argument was not well-received by prosecutors.</p> <p>All 17 cats have been returned to their owners, who reported their pets seemed well-fed but &#8220;more entitled than before, like they got used to being treated like celebrities.&#8221;</p> <p>Patterson faces charges including fraud, pet theft, operating an illegal zoo, and what authorities are calling &#8220;aggressive feline misrepresentation.&#8221; He was released on $15,000 bail and has been ordered to stay at least 500 feet away from all domestic cats.</p> <p>&#8220;Those cats deserved better than boring suburban life,&#8221; Patterson said at his arraignment. &#8220;I was giving them purpose and exotic identities. If anything, I&#8217;m a hero.&#8221;</p>