An Irvine dog trainer convicted of killing 11 dogs in his care was sentenced Friday to nearly 12 years in prison, while his assistant was ordered to spend three years behind bars for helping to cover up the crime.
Kwong “Tony” Chun Sit, 54, was sentenced to 11 years and 10 months in prison for his June 17 conviction on 10 felony counts of animal cruelty and two felony counts of animal abuse, as well as misdemeanor counts of attempting to conceal evidence and concealing evidence. He was acquitted of one count of animal cruelty and nine counts of animal abuse.
Co-defendant Tingfeng Liu, 24, was convicted of felony accessory after the fact and misdemeanor counts of attempt to destroy or conceal evidence and destroying or concealing evidence.
Through an interpreter, Sit told the dog owners in court Friday, “I apologize. Please accept my sincere apology for the deaths of every dog.”
Sit said he has “not been able to find peace” since the dogs died.
“My own dog died.”
Sit denied that the dogs died in his van as prosecutors have alleged.
“The dogs did not die in the van,” Sit said. “The van was only used to transport them to their training sessions.”
That prompted Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger to ask Sit if he would say where the dogs died. After consulting with his attorney, Kate Corrigan, Sit said he wanted to offer more details.
“I want everyone to know the truth,” Sit said. “The dogs were staying in an air-conditioned space.”
He said he checked that night and it was working, but the next day he found out there had been a power outage overnight.
Sit said he got into dog training because his pet helped him get through a divorce in 2019 that left him feeling suicidal.
Liu said through a translator that she was “very sorry. I made poor decisions because of my ignorance of the law … I was not prepared to make a statement so I am a little nervous but I want to say I’m really, really sorry for what happened.”
Menninger apparently did not believe Sit’s explanation as she referred to the canines dying in the defendant’s “hot van with no water” when explaining the punishment she decided on.
The judge also referred to the death of Rosie, who she said was beaten.
Sit has credit for 773 days behind bars and Liu has credit for 772 days in jail.
One of the dog owners said the death of her pet was especially painful because there was no clear-cut evidence as to how the dogs died.
Chris Davis told Menninger of the grief he has struggled with since his pet Luna died under Sit’s care.
“I keep wondering what if I picked her up the day before,” Davis said, adding he “went into a deep state of depression” after Luna died.
The dogs that died under Sit’s care were Shadow, Ziggy, Miko, Rosie, Theo, Puffin, Cody, Zoe, Luna, Bang Bang and Saint.
Bang Bang’s owner said her pet was being trained to be a service dog.
“I am not emotionally prepared to replace him,” she said. “My family has been torn to pieces.”
Ziggy’s owner said her pet was adopted as a puppy and grew to be enormous. She said her son was 8 when the puppy licked his face at the adoption center.
“So, you could say they chose each other,” she said.
Ziggy “really didn’t know his own strength,” and was fond of “jumping on” people, so he was sent to the trainer to help him with that, she said.
Zoe’s owner had a statement read aloud in court saying she envisioned the puppy growing up with the daughter she was pregnant with when they adopted their pet. But after she was told her dog died under Sit’s care, she had a miscarriage and lost her child at 6 1/2 months pregnant, she said.
“Within weeks, I lost both of them, both of my girls,” she said. “The future I envisioned for my family disappeared at once.”
Sit owned Happy K9 Academy, where the dogs were housed to be trained, Deputy District Attorney Danica Drotman said in her opening statement of the trial. Liu moved in with Sit in May 2025 and would help with some of the dog training and care, the prosecutor said.
Prosecutors said Liu was Sit’s girlfriend, but probation officials said that was not true and that Liu had a boyfriend at the time and only worked for Sit for a few weeks on social media and advertising, but she never got paid.
The dogs would stay for a week or two weeks for the training, Drotman said.
One of the dogs died June 12 and the rest died June 18.
After the dogs died, Sit and Liu took the bodies to multiple crematory services, Drotman said. Two were cremated but the rest of the cremations were prevented by authorities, according to the prosecutor.
Many of the dog owners criticized Liu for falsely representing herself as the owner of some of the dogs she took to crematoriums for disposal.
Sit sent clients a text message saying the canines “died peacefully” in their sleep overnight, Drotman said. He offered refunds and said the dogs would be cremated, and said the clients could pick up the ashes.
The texts triggered the investigation when one of the clients called police, she said, adding that an officer who investigated the defendant’s home at 733 Estancia found his Mercedes-Benz van was filled with canine carrying containers that reeked of bleach.
Necropsies showed that eight of the dogs died from heat stroke and one from blunt-force trauma, Drotman said.
Deputy District Attorney Michael Chay argued the text messages to his customers were “lie after lie after lie because we know the truth. We know he was not actually sorry… and it was painful and they suffered… It wasn’t unexpected. If anything, it was preventable.”
A prosecution expert testified that the puppy Rosie was “so afraid she urinated on herself,” Chay argued. The puppy’s cause of death was “blunt force trauma to the head,” Chay said.
Evidence also indicated many of the dogs died of heat stroke as they were crammed into carriers too tight for the dogs and left in a van, the prosecutor said.
“That van was a death bed,” Chay said.
When Irvine police asked Sit where his dog was when the others died, the defendant said the dog was in his air-conditioned apartment with him, according to Chay.
Chay said Liu moved into Sit’s one-bedroom apartment with him and that Sit referred to her as his girlfriend in a text message.
Liu’s attorney, Fred Fascenelli, disputed a romantic relationship and said police combed through hundreds of personal videos of Sit’s, but never found any intimate images of the defendants. Liu never changed her address from San Diego, where she went to college, and moved at the beginning of the summer break, the defense attorney said.
Whenever Sit went to pick up a customer’s dog, Liu always remained in the car, Fascenelli said. The two had a 30-year age difference and prosecutors failed to prove they were romantically involved, the defense attorney argued.
Liu simply “followed directions” from her boss when taking the dogs to a large-animal landfill business.
“There’s no proof she knew a crime had been committed,” Fascenelli said.
“I don’t see a nefarious aspect of cleaning up after a number of animals had passed away,” Fascenelli said.
Liu had also asked Sit if he really wanted to leave the bodies at the landfill, Fascenelli said.
Sit’s attorney Kate Corrigan said prosecutors did not prove how the dogs died.
In her opening statement of the trial, Corrigan said Sit had been a dog trainer for a long time and enjoyed a strong reputation.
Corrigan referred to “panic attacks” in the wake of the deaths of the dogs.
“I believe the evidence will show you one bad decision after another happened,” Corrigan said. “Whether that rises to the level of a criminal conviction will be left up to you.”
Corrigan said “things happened very quickly … and they were not the fault of Mr. Sit.”