Two Wisconsin landlords who admitted to stealing one of their tenant’s dogs following a lease dispute will not face any jail time even as the dog remains missing a year after court proceedings began.
On Halloween 2022, Susan Haas, 64, and her sister Sarah Engeseth, 62, took Linnea Sandlin’s rat terrier named Simon, after the landlords claimed the dog violated the property’s lease terms.
The sisters, both found guilty of misdemeanor Intentional Dognapping, Party to a Crime, were ordered to take part in a first offender’s program by Dane County Judge Ellen Berz as part of a plea deal, as opposed to jail time.
“Simon, he was like my child,” Sandlin told the Dane County court, according to WKOW. “I miss him and love him so much. He never can be replaced.”
Haas and Engeseth gained possession of the pooch after they showed up at John Isaacson’s workplace, who was dogsitting for Sandlin while she looked for a better place for the dog to stay because she was aware the dog wasn’t allowed at her rental property.
Isaacson said the woman showed him an attorney’s letter that claimed they had the authority to bring the dog to a shelter, which he reluctantly complied with and handed Simon over, a decision he says he has regretted since.
“He’s gone because of me,” Isaacson told the outlet in February. “I didn’t fight for him. I did what I thought I should have done when they flashed the paper at me.”
After getting control of the dog, Haas says she was going to surrender him to the local Dane County Humane Society but Simon instead jumped out the back of her SUV while parked outside of the facility and ran off.
Haas claimed in court that she made no effort to search for the dog after it ran off.
The Dane County District Attorney’s office charged both Haas and Engelseth with felony party to a theft back in December, but a month later on January 30, Assistant District Attorney Paul Humphrey announced the charges would be reduced to misdemeanors, court documents show.
“It is usual for first offenders who have taken responsibility for the crime to have an opportunity for deferred prosecution,” Humphrey said, defending the decision.
“I feel the punishment against them is wrong,” the dogsitter Sandlin said. “It went from a felony to a misdemeanor and now it’s probably going to be nothing at all in the end.”
“I often wonder where the justice is in this,” Sandlin said. “I will always be the victim.”
