Sundre woman guilty in pit bull attack

CANADA -- The victim of a vicious pit bull attack ordered by a Sundre woman hopes the judge throws the book at her during sentencing.

Deanna Wolfe said on Tuesday she was nearly killed by Rita Phillip after the offender sicced her animals on her.

“I hope she gets the maximum,” Wolfe said, shortly after Justice Jo’Anne Strekaf convicted Phillip of aggravated assault and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

“She nearly killed me.”

Rita Phillip

The maximum sentence for aggravated assault is 14 years, while criminal negligence causing bodily harm has a 10 year maximum.

Strekaf ruled Phillip ordered her vicious dogs on Wolfe in the early morning hours of Aug. 18, 2012, after the two women got into an argument.

“She pushed the door and told the dogs to attack, attack that bitch,” Wolfe told a Court of Queen’s Bench hearing.

“I found Deanna to be a credible witness,” Strekaf said, in dismissing suggestions by defence lawyer David Mohr the attack may have occurred in a different scenario than the one described by Wolfe.

One of those was a claim Phillip made to a neighbour several hours later that Wolfe and her boyfriend, Goi Apey were attempting to rape her and the dogs attacked the victim when she placed her hand over Phillip’s mouth.

“The story she related to (the neighbour) about the dogs attacking a woman who was covering her mouth ... is illogical,” Strekaf said.

“Why would the dogs only attack the woman if that were actually happening,” the judge said, of the claimed rape attempt.

She said other possibilities, such as Apey ordering the dogs on her “have no air of reality.”

Victim Deanna Wolfe

“I have no doubt that Rita told the dogs to attack Deanna,” Strekaf said.

Wolfe earlier testified Phillip became enraged when she indicated she wanted to return to Calgary after spending more than two weeks staying at her Sundre trailer.

Wolfe had gone there at Phillip’s invitation and their relationship was good until Apey was invited to join them.

From that point, she said, Phillip engaged in a whisper campaign trying to pit the couple against each other.

On the day she was attacked, Phillip told Apey that Wolfe had slept with several men while he was in jail, causing the argument which ultimately led to the dogs being sicced on her.

In the attack Wolfe was badly wounded, including having her right ear so damaged it had to be amputated.

A date for sentencing will be set June 27.

Phillip remains on bail pending a sentencing decision.

(Calgary Sun - June 17, 2014)