Couple Accused of Abandoning Ill Aunt in Park

A North Hollywood couple are scheduled to be arraigned today on charges that they abandoned an enfeebled 78-year-old relative in a gang-infested park, authorities said.

Mercedes Sepulveda, 41, and Leonel Rendon, 47, left Sepulveda’s aunt, holding bags of her belongings, in Sun Valley Park on Aug. 27, said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case.

The aunt suffers from Parkinson’s disease and asthma and when officers found her in the park, 36 hours after she had been left there, she could not remember her name, Goldstein said.

She was taken to a San Fernando Valley convalescent hospital, where she now lives, Goldstein said.

A notorious gang hangout, Sun Valley Park has been the site of two killings in the past two years--one earlier this month--and numerous shootings, Goldstein said. “The vision that is conjured up here--of this woman being ushered into this park with her several sacks--is quite pitiful,” he said.

Goldstein said Sepulveda told police that she had cared for the aunt for 20 years, but “it became too much of a burden,” financially and emotionally.

Rendon moved in with Sepulveda and the woman two years ago. The defendants each face one count of elder abuse and endangerment. If convicted, they could be sentenced to a maximum of a year in jail and fined up to $1,000.