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Mother, daughter convicted in neighbor's fatal pit bull attack

A verdict is expected Monday afternoon in the case of a mother and daughter charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of their 75-year-old neighbor, who was attacked by their two pit bulls
Mother, daughter convicted in neighbor's fatal pit bull attack

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A mother and daughter whose two pit bulls attacked their 75-year-old neighbor - who succumbed to her injuries several weeks later - were convicted Monday of involuntary manslaughter and owning a dangerous animal causing death.

Alba Cornelio, 41, and her 21-year-old daughter, Carla, each face up to four years in prison when sentenced March 11.

The defendants were taken into custody after the verdicts despite a plea from defense attorneys that the mother is battling leukemia and also has a heart condition. Superior Court Judge Richard Whitney said the defendants posed a possible danger to the community and were a risk to flee.

Alba Cornelio cried loudly when the judge made his custody order and had to be taken out of the courtroom by paramedics.

Deputy District Attorney Makenzie Harvey told jurors that the defendants knew their dogs were dangerous because the canines had attacked a man and his puppy six months before the attack on Emako Mendoza.

Harvey said the mother and daughter were on notice that their pit bulls were dangerous, but were "indifferent" until the dogs attacked Mendoza in her back yard garden the morning of June 18, 2011, in Paradise Hills.

"Mrs. Mendoza was literally ripped to shreds by these two pit bulls," Harvey told the San Diego Superior Court jury.

The manslaughter charge was added three weeks after Emako Mendoza died of complications from the attack at her home. She was 76 when she died on Christmas Eve 2011.

Mendoza was attacked in her fenced-in yard when she went outside to get her newspaper. The victim's left arm had to be amputated below the elbow and her left leg amputated below the knee. Doctors later amputated her right leg.

Witnesses testified at earlier hearings that the pit bulls got through a gap in the fence, ripping a hole near a metal gate that the victim's husband had installed to bridge the gap in the fence between the two properties.

John O'Connell, the attorney for Carla Cornelio, told the jury that it was not a crime to own pit bulls. "What happened that day was not a crime," O"Connell said.

In the six years the defendants owned the pit bulls, they only had the one problem with the dogs getting out and biting the man and his puppy, the attorney said.

After that, Carla took the dog that bit the man and his puppy to the veterinarian and had her brother fix the fence, O'Connell said.

Despite those precautions, the dogs were able to get through the fence the morning Emako Mendoza was attacked, he said.

"Those dogs did something completely unexpected," O'Connell said.

 

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