News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 12, 2007

Contact person(s):

Media Coordinator, Donna Edwards - 565-3099 Media Spokesperson, Assistant District Attorney Christine Cook

Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California

JAIL SENTENCE IN DOG ATTACK CASE

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua announced that Emmellia Dale-Pincus was sentenced to serve four months in the Sonoma County jail, perform 100 hours of community service, and meet other terms and conditions of supervised probation for a period of three years.

District Attorney Passalacqua said, “This sentence sends a message to those who knowingly allow vicious animals to pose such a danger to the community that they will be held responsible.”

This morning’s hearing before the Honorable Eliott Daum was the result of an attack by an American Bull Dog owned by the defendant on Victim Wendy Rydberg in the early afternoon of April 6, 2006 in the Greenleaf Drive neighborhood of Santa Rosa. Mrs. Rydberg was walking back from a school bus stop with her two young children when they were accosted by the dog that had managed to get out of the defendant’s house. The dog became very aggressive and Mrs. Rydberg told her children to run home. She blocked her children from the dog as the dog tried to get around her at the children. The dog then leaped directly up and bit Mrs. Rydberg in the face, tearing off a large portion of her upper lip and nose before fleeing.

After a two day preliminary examination in February of 2007, Judge Daum reduced the felony charge of knowingly possessing a mischievous animal and allowing it to run at large to a misdemeanor over the objection of the People. The defendant subsequently plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge, for which she was sentenced today.

Mrs. Rydberg, who addressed the court in a soft, determined voice, said “I will live with this for the rest of my life...someone has to be held accountable.” The People, represented by Deputy District Attorney James P. Casey, argued for a substantial jail sentence and supervised probation for the extraordinary harm suffered in this case. In sentencing the defendant, the Court denied the defense requests for no jail and an unsupervised probationary term.