Schaumburg woman guilty of animal cruelty

Cook County Assistant Public Defender Larry Kugler argued to the jury that Jenell Land was not a criminal and did everything she could to save her seriously injured pit bull.

But the jury disagreed, and on Thursday found Land guilty of aggravated cruelty to an animal. She now faces up to one to three years in prison when she's sentenced on Nov. 10.

Land, a 33-year-old mother of four from Schaumburg, was convicted of putting a 3.4- pound tow chain around the neck of her 2-year-old pet pit bull, Carmello, keeping it so tight for so long that it became embedded in his neck.

The chain caused an infection that led to the dog being euthanized last November.

The key witness who took the stand during the two-day trial in the Rolling Meadows courthouse was Dr. Christina McCratic, the veterinarian from Golf Rose Animal Hospital in Schaumburg who treated the dog and alerted police.

McCratic testified she immediately smelled the dog's "decaying, rotten flesh" when she entered the examining room on Nov. 30, 2008, where Land, her boyfriend and her grandfather brought the dog.

The dog couldn't lift its head, its ribs were visible and McCratic said muscle was exposed and pus was coming out of the blood-covered chain stuck in the dog's neck.

The defense argued that a woman who intended to harm a dog wouldn't have brought him to an emergency veterinary hospital on a Sunday and then offer everything she had - including her car title and a collection of Hummel figurines - to pay for lifesaving surgery for the animal.

Land took the stand in her own defense Thursday, saying she never noticed anything was wrong with the dog until they were at the veterinarian's office.

She also repeatedly corrected Assistant State's Attorney Mike Andre to say the dog wasn't just hers - it also belonged to her boyfriend, Yemonja Tripp. He was not charged.

Land also repeatedly said that she did not live in Tripp's house, where the dog was housed, but that her 12-year-old son oversaw the dog's care.

Land testified that she bought seven dog collars, none of which prevented the dog from running away.

So she and Tripp purchased the industrial strength chain at Home Depot and repeatedly took it off and on the dog, she said.

A few months before the dog's death, a Schaumburg community service officer, responding to a call of a barking dog, warned her that the collar was inappropriate, other witnesses testified.