LAPEER (AP) — A man and his wife have been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for failing to control dogs who killed a cancer survivor as he jogged on a rural road.
Lapeer County Judge Nick Holowka said he couldn’t imagine a more “gruesome” death, although he also acknowledged that the owners didn’t intend to have the dogs kill Craig Sytsma.
Sytsma, 46, of Livonia, was mauled by two cane corsos who were loose while he was jogging a year ago in Metamora Township. He worked nearby as a metallurgist for a German company.
Sebastiano Quagliata, 46, and Valbona Lucaj, 45, had been charged with second-degree murder but pleaded no contest to owning a dangerous dog causing death.
The judge sentenced them to between four years and nine months and 15 years in prison.
Lucaj, a native of Albania, and Quagliata, a native of Italy, will get credit for about a year spent in custody since their arrest, which means they’ll be eligible for parole in 2019.
They could eventually be deported.
- Posted July 20, 2015
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
Dog owners in fatal mauling sent to prison
headlines Macomb
- Toasting three decades of success
- Court rules absentee ballots with mismatched or missing stubs can’t be counted
- Man sentenced for arson, first-degree animal torture/killing
- St. Clair Shores man arraigned for intentional threat to commit act of violence against a school
- Nessel files reply calling for full public hearings on DTE’s data center application
headlines National
- The business of successfully running an in-house department
- ACLU and BigLaw firm use ‘Orange is the New Black’ in hashtag effort to promote NY jail reform
- Justice Gorsuch writes children’s book about ‘Heroes of 1776’
- Companies use ‘deceitful tactics’ to market harmful ultra-processed products with ‘addictive nature,’ city’s suit alleges
- Lawyer accused of trying to poison her husband
- ‘Lawyers Gone Wild’? Filmmaker criticizes bar as he seeks ethics probe of serial killer’s daughter for alleged lie
