SoCal Dog trainer learns fate for trapping animals in small cages, leaving them to die

An Orange County dog trainer who prosecutors said left 11 dogs to bake to death in cramped cages stacked inside a sweltering van was sentenced Friday to nearly 12 years behind bars.

Kwong “Tony” Chun Sit, 54, of Irvine, was ordered to serve 11 years and 10 months in state prison just weeks after a jury convicted him of animal cruelty and destroying evidence.

His live-in girlfriend, 24-year-old Tingfeng Liu, who was in the US on a student visa, was also sentenced to three years in prison for helping cover up the gruesome crime.

“An Irvine dog trainer was sentenced today… for killing 11 dogs by keeping the animals left in his care in small crates in a hot van where they died of heat stroke and then impersonating the pets’ owners to have the dogs’ bodies cremated in an attempt to conceal how the dogs died,” the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

“The man’s girlfriend was convicted of assisting in the cover-up. The couple dropped off the dogs’ bodies at different crematoriums in the area in an apparent attempt to avoid suspicion,” the statement continued.

The horrifying scheme unraveled after one devastated pet owner contacted Irvine police upon receiving a text message saying their dog had died.

When investigators searched Sit’s home, they found a van packed with dog crates that reeked of bleach, according to prosecutors.

Necropsies determined that eight of the dogs died from heat stroke, while another died from blunt-force trauma. Two additional dogs had already been cremated, making it impossible for investigators to determine exactly how they died.

“Every single day our minds are forced to relive Saint’s final moments over and over again,” one woman told The Orange County Register during Friday’s sentencing hearing.

Another owner said the death of one dog is a “tragedy,” but the deaths of so many animals amounted to an “abomination.”

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Sit, who operated Happy K9 Academy and reportedly earned about $20,000 a month, apologized in court but insisted “the dogs did not die in the van.”

He was convicted on 19 felony counts. Both Sit and Liu have remained jailed on $550,000 bail since their arrests.