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​Woman who stole, euthanized dog of man with cancer gets jail

PITTSBURGH - A woman who stole her cancer-stricken neighbor's dog and paid to have it euthanized was sentenced Friday to three to six months in jail.

Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani ordered sheriff's deputies to handcuff 58-year-old Gisele Paris and immediately take her to jail.

"I don't see anything to indicate you understand the wrongfulness of your conduct," the Allegheny County judge said.

Paris was convicted in December of theft, receiving stolen property and cruelty to animals.

She stole a Siberian husky named Thor from neighbor Mark Boehler's yard on Thanksgiving 2013 because she believed it was being neglected, despite assurances to the contrary from a humane officer. Boehler, 55, who had been diagnosed with stage 3 esophageal cancer months before the dog was stolen, said Thor had health problems but wasn't suffering as Paris had claimed.

Paris denied stealing the dog, telling police she found it in a vacant lot and took it to an animal shelter because it appeared to have been neglected. Paris said that once a veterinarian told her the dog had growths on its rear legs that would cost $600 to remove, she instead paid to have the dog put down at her home last February.

But Assistant District Attorney Matthew Wholey said Paris paid to euthanize the dog merely to "destroy the evidence" of her crimes.

Defense attorney Robert Mielnicki argued that his client may have been misguided but wasn't malicious. He planned to ask a judge to stay the sentence so Paris can be released while he appeals her conviction.

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