SAN ANTONIO – Abilene Schnieder and Christian Moreno have appealed their sentences after being charged in a deadly pit bull attack.
The couple pled guilty before going to trial. They were sentenced to 15 and 18 years in prison. They were also each handed a $5,000 fine and banned from owning dogs again.
We brought you full coverage of that sentencing hearing in September.
Now, court paperwork in Bexar County shows the couple has filed appeals.
This doesn’t come as a surprise. After the couple was sentenced, defense attorneys said in interviews that probation would have been an adequate punishment.
“It was always a difficult case,” Moreno’s attorney JorgeAristotelidis told us in September.
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The notices were filed with the Fourth Court of Appeals.
Moreno and Schnieder’s appeals both cite “outrageous government conduct.”
We’ve contacted the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and the attorneys of Schnieder and Moreno for comment.
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The couple’s dogs escaped their yard and attacked 81-year-old Ramon Najera and his wife, Janie, in February 2023.
Ramon was killed in the attack, and Janie was seriously injured.
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Defense attorneys for the couple said evidence shows that the City of San Antonio had multiple chances to resolve the issue of these dangerous dogs being loose, but did not.
In the sentencing hearings, the defense said the dogs should have been processed as dangerous dogs long before this attack, which would have led to euthanization because Schnieder and Moreno would not have been able to afford to maintain dangerous dog requirements.
“That clearly would have avoided this tragic situation,” Aristotelidis told the judge. “More than once, these dogs could have been euthanized, and they should have.”
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