A B.C. man sentenced to four months in jail and three years’ probation following his conviction for wilfully killing, wounding, or injuring his ex-girlfriend’s tiny chihuahua, is appealing the Oct. 18, 2024, verdict.

Jeannine Chiasson came home from work on March 25, 2020, to find her dog Tacori, who weighed less than nine pounds, in significant physical trauma.

“I’m sentenced with this for life,” Chiasson told Global News Weds. “What I saw, what I heard, that won’t go away.”

According to appellate documents filed by the Crown, Randeep Ghataura entered his ex-girlfriend’s apartment earlier that day and repeatedly struck her small Chihuahua on the head with a shoe.

The dog suffered serious injuries and had to be euthanized.

Two years later, Chiasson recorded a telephone call with Ghataura where he confessed to hitting the dog on the head a “couple of times when I didn’t like the way he behaved…maybe with a shoe”.

Ghataura was charged with wilfully causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal, and wilfully killing, wounding, or injuring an animal.

While the judge was satisfied at trial as to the appellant’s guilt on both counts, she convicted Ghataura of the latter charge and stayed the first count.

Ghataura was taken into custody at the conclusion of his sentencing in February 2025 and released on bail shortly after, pending his appeal.

Ghataura’s counsel told the BC Court of Appeal on Wednesday that there are two main grounds of the appeal.

Babak Zargarian is challenging the trial judge’s handling of the expert evidence and the mens rea, specifically claiming the judge erred in failing to deal with the wilfulness or criminal intent required.

What happened to Chiasson’s dog Tacori was “an impulsive reaction – an accident”, the appellant’s counsel argued, and the evidence does not support wilfully causing death.

Zargarian also told the appeal court that the expert veterinarian’s evidence was inconclusive.

The dog was sick with a pre-existing illness on March 17, 2020, he said, and on the offence date of March 25, it was experiencing the same symptoms along with one new one, red eyes.

While the Crown’s expert, Dr. Adrian Walton, testified the most likely cause of the conjunctival bleeding was strangulation or blunt force trauma, Zargarian argued there were other causes the veterinarian could not rule out because diagnostic testing was not done.

“Ultimately, the expert cannot say the accused caused the injuries of Tacori”, said the appellant’s counsel.

Counsel for the respondent argued the expert evidence is very clear, and whatever brought the dog to the hospital on March 17 was unrelated to its condition a week later.

Crown lawyer Eric Purtzki said Dr. Walton’s opinion was that the presence of both conjunctival bleeding and Central nervous system symptoms was consistent with either the infliction of head trauma or strangulation, and that he ruled out other causes.

“In these circumstances, the appellant’s suggestion that there could have been some kind of alternate or unknown cause of the dog’s symptoms on March 25th finds no support either in Dr. Walton’s evidence or in the rest of the trial evidence”, Purtzki stated in the appellate documents.

If anything, Purtzki argued, the appellant’s guilt was readily established even without the expert evidence of Dr. Walton – based on his own out-of-court statements.

Trial evidence included a March 18, 2022, statement in which Ghataura admitted to Chiasson that he struck the dog on the head and a second statement to police on March 28, 2022, where he admitted he hurt the dog “badly”.

Chiasson also testified about the circumstances in which she let Ghataura into her apartment on March 25, 2020, and the severe injuries she observed on Tacori when she arrived home from work later that evening.

Veterinary records from two animal hospitals corroborated Chiasson’s observations about the dog’s condition on March 25, 2020 and its condition when it was seen in hospital the week before.

Further, the Crown lawyer said the judge correctly applied the mens rea for the offences and was well-aware that the evidence had to establish that the appellant acted “willfully”.

“Based on her findings, it is apparent why she reached that conclusion,” Purtzki stated. “There is no error here.”

The respondent’s counsel argued the verdicts are reasonable and supported by the evidence, and the appeal should be dismissed.

Outside court, Chiasson said her more than six-year fight for justice has been extremely trying.

“You get knocked down a lot and you’re tested a lot”, she said in an interview. “But in my case, there was absolutely nowhere but forward – I wasn’t quitting, I wasn’t stopping.”

Chiasson said she considers herself a true underdog and hopes Tacori’s legal case will aid in getting justice for other animals in the future.

“She was waiting five hours in pain and in fear so how could I not fight, how could I not fight for a victim with no voice”, Chiasson told Global News. “Even today it hurts, you fight back tears when you hear things in the courtroom.”

BC Court of Appeal justices Janet Winteringham, David C. Harris, and Peter H. Edelmann have reserved judgment.

Chiasson said she’s not giving up.

“This case needs closure, it needs justice.”