11 dogs died after being crammed in crates in a sweltering van. How a trainer tried to cover it up
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An Irvine dog trainer who ran Happy K9 Academy was sentenced to 11 years and 10 months in state prison Friday for killing 11 dogs by keeping them in tiny crates in a hot van and lying to the owners about their deaths.
In June, Kwong “Tony” Chun Sit, 54, was convicted of 11 felony counts of animal cruelty, seven misdemeanor counts of attempting to destroy evidence and one misdemeanor count of destroying evidence.
Sit’s girlfriend, Tingfeng Liu, 24, of Vista, was convicted of one felony count of accessory to a felony, one misdemeanor count of destruction of evidence and two misdemeanor counts of attempted destruction of evidence. She has been sentenced to three years in Orange County jail, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.
The couple have been held in custody since their arrests last June, with a $500,000 bond after prosecutors said that Sit and Liu were “packed and ready to flee when they were arrested.”
Authorities were tipped off to the crimes after one of the dog owners told authorities that they’d received a message from the trainer saying their dog had died in its sleep and was cremated.
“The one family reached out to us [and] thought it was kind of suspicious that their healthy dog died with this trainer,” Irvine police spokesperson Kyle Oldoerp told The Times in a report last year.
In one of those texts to the victims, Sit reportedly wrote: “I’m so sorry to let you know that Miko passed away peacefully during the night while resting. There were no signs of pain or struggle, and it was truly unexpected. I am deeply saddened by this loss.”
In a subsequent investigation, authorities found that Sit kept the animals in small crates in a hot van, where the animals died of heat stroke. At least one of the dogs died because of blunt force trauma. As part of Sit‘s efforts to conceal the deaths of the animals, he impersonated the owners and had the dogs cremated, according to prosecutors.
Times staff writer Jasmine Mendez contributed to this report.
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