No charges in mountain lion case: Fish and Game urged action against woman who tried to save pair of wayward cubs
SCOTT STEEPLETON, NEWS-PRESS CITY EDITOR
The Santa Barbara County district attorney's office will file no charges against a woman who took into her possession briefly two mountain lion cubs found wandering in a Solvang neighborhood earlier this year.
In a Dec. 2 letter obtained by the News-Press, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jerry Lulejian informed Julia Di Sieno, executive director of the nonprofit Animal Rescue Team Inc., that she faces no prosecution in connection with the April 3 incident.
"We are exercising our discretion by choosing not to proceed either criminally or civilly," Mr. Lulejian wrote. "But we want to impress upon you that you could have either criminal or civil liability in the future for any violations of your permits from the (California) Department of Fish and Game."
The tale of the cubs drew widespread criticism from animal rights proponents not only because of how the cubs were treated but also because of how Ms. Di Sieno was treated as a result of her actions on the cubs' behalf.
After receiving the letter on Wednesday, Ms. Di Sieno told the News-Press she is happy with the outcome.
"Nobody was against what we did."
What she did was tranquilize the apparently undernourished cubs that were found foraging in a trash can at a condominium complex near Aarhus Drive and Fifth Street, and take them to her rescue facility in Santa Ynez, offering to care for them until they could be returned to the wild or at least sent together to a zoo.
Instead, Fish and Game took the cubs from Ms. Di Sieno because she lacked the proper permit.
From there, they were split up.
As first reported in the News-Press, one was ultimately sent by plane to New York where the animal was paraded around the tarmac on the back of a motorized cart by a baggage handler.
The plane ride, according to the director of Binghampton Zoo at Ross Park, panicked and spooked the animal because its carrier was not covered properly.
The other cub ultimately found its way to the Folsom Zoo.
"It's been spayed," said Ms. Di Sieno. "She's doing well and seems to tolerate her keepers well."
Fish and Game sought to punish Ms. Di Sieno over the incident and forwarded its investigation of the events of that April evening to the district attorney for review.
Meanwhile, Fish and Game found itself embroiled in another controversy in connection with the Oct. 10 shooting death by warden Roland Takayama of a California black bear that wandered into an Ojai neighborhood.
The incident prompted Democratic Santa Barbara Assemblyman and 2010 state attorney general hopeful Pedro Nava to request a face-to-face meeting with Fish and Game chief Don Koch.
That meeting never took place, because on Oct. 21, Mr. Koch announced he would resign his $143,000-per-year post of 18 months as of Nov. 1. In his resignation letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Koch said the move was not related to his duties.
While all of this was going on, prosecutors were looking into Fish and Game's complaint against Ms. Di Sieno. In a letter dated Nov. 13, Mr. Lulejian wrote that she faced possible civil penalties over the unlawful possession of a mountain lion.
The penalty was a minimum $250 fine.
Noting his office's policy "to discuss any legal action" with proposed defendants or their attorneys, Mr. Lulejian offered Ms. Di Sieno two weeks to give her side of the story.
They met on Nov. 23.
"After speaking with you at length about the incident and noting your honesty and willingness to have no further violations of your permits," Mr. Lulejian wrote in his Dec. 2 letter, "this office has decided to exercise its discretion and not file either a criminal or civil prosecution against you."
The prosecutor warned Ms. Di Sieno not to overstep any permit or memorandum of understanding she may have with the state.
"You recognized what you had done was wrong in this situation and acknowledged the fact that your MOU/permit issued by the Department of Fish and Game does not allow you to handle or possess mountain lions."
Ms. Di Sieno, who recently moved her rescue facility to a new location in Santa Ynez, maintains she took action to help the cubs because there was no warden around to do so.
"We had the crates, we had the animal ambulance, we had the tranquilizer gun, we had a vet on standby," she said.
"And we had a place to take them."