Trial Ordered for Owner of Pit Bull That Bit Woman

A Glassell Park woman whose pit bull dog mauled an animal control officer last June, leaving her with nerve damage to her hands and a badly scarred breast, was ordered Thursday to stand trial on charge of felony assault with a deadly weapon.

But Los Angeles Municipal Judge Candace D. Cooper dismissed two other assault counts against Edlyn Joy Hauser, saying the evidence failed to show that the dog owner intended to harm the victims of an earlier attack by the animal.

Hauser, a 37-year-old computer programmer, said she felt “vindicated” that two of the three assault counts were dropped.

“Perhaps I was careless, but I didn’t want anybody to be hurt,” she told reporters.

‘Some Problems’

Her attorney, Bruce Margolin, characterized both attacks as “accidents” and said the dog, which has been impounded, was experiencing “some problems . . . as a result of not being exercised properly.”

Hauser faces a maximum prison sentence of seven years if convicted of assault and inflicting great bodily injury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sally Thomas said.

During a daylong preliminary hearing, Animal Control Officer Florence Crowell, 33, broke down on the witness stand while testifying about the injuries she received June 22 from Hauser’s 55-pound pit bull, Benjamin. Crowell, who was hospitalized for five days, had come to Hauser’s home to investigate an alleged attack the night before.

Joseph Sheppa, an eyewitness, testified that Hauser told the animal control officer, “You’re not going to take my dog,” and then announced she was going to let Benjamin out of the house.

“If you don’t want to get bit, you’d better get out of here,” Sheppa quoted Hauser as saying.

As Benjamin began biting Crowell’s wrists and chest, the owner repeatedly cried, “I told you to leave him alone,” the witness testified.

Earlier, Hauser’s landlord, Warren Volpe, who lives in a unit of the duplex property, testified that as he was arriving home with his family about 10:30 p.m. on June 21, Benjamin emerged from Hauser’s house and “leaped up onto (my) daughter’s leg and chomped on it.”

His 7-year-old daughter, Brisa, required more than 40 stitches and will have to undergo plastic surgery, he said.

Volpe himself was bitten on the face, hand, arm, leg and stomach, he testified. He said it was “between one and two minutes” before Hauser appeared and restrained the dog.

Characterizing Hauser’s role in the attack on the Volpes as “reprehensible,” Cooper said, “To say it was reckless is certainly obvious.”

But in the absence of testimony showing that Benjamin had a history of violence, the judge said she was unable to find that Hauser’s conduct in the first attack “was anything but careless.”

By the time Benjamin attacked Crowell, however, Hauser “was certainly aware that the dog had the ability to push open the screen door without assistance, that the dog would attack and seriously injure persons,” the judge said.

Cooper also cited a KCBS-TV videotape of the second attack that was introduced at the hearing. Sheppa had called the station to complain about the dog’s assault on the Volpes.

“The defendant’s statements on the tape and her demeanor are more than adequate for me to hold her to answer on assault,” the judge said.

Margolin, who has argued that the KCBS crew “instigated and provoked” the attack on Crowell, called field producer Elizabeth Claman to the stand. But Claman refused to answer questions about her role as a “newsgatherer,” and Cooper ruled that the California Constitution protected her from having to testify.