A veterinarian testified Friday that a San Jose man who tortured and killed 21 cats likely sexually abused one of them after killing it, drawing gasps from a courtroom audience.

Robert Roy Farmer, 26, pleaded guilty last year to 21 felony counts of animal cruelty and one count each of misdemeanor battery and being under the influence.

He was arrested in October 2015 after San Jose police officers found him asleep in his car with an orange female tabby cat squeezed inside a center console. That cat–called “Tabby Doe” at the hearing–has become the focal point of the prosecution’s argument for requiring Farmer to register as a sex offender when he’s eventually released from prison.

Referring to the tabby cat found inside Farmer’s car, Dr. Sharon Ostermann, a veterinarian for San Jose Animal Care and Services, testified in the pre-sentencing hearing that the condition of the cat indicated evidence of sexual assault.

When Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Alexandra Ellis asked whether it was possible for the condition to occur naturally after death, Ostermann replied no.

Farmer’s attorney, Wesley Schroeder, previously told this newspaper that the test Ostermann conducted on the cat showed no signs that would suggest an assault had taken place. But Ostermann said that didn’t eliminate the possibility of sexual abuse “because limited literature in this field says there may be no injuries at all” on an animal.

Superior Court Judge Sharon A. Chatman announced that Farmer will be sentenced on July 14.