“Comedian” Gets Jail Time for Animal Cruelty; Her Boston Terrier Gets Death

A woman who listed her occupation in jail records as “comedian” may not be laughing at the 26-day sentence she received in an Orange County courtroom on Wednesday.

Then again, it is lighter than the death sentence her ailing Boston Terrier received.

Mary Kay Sodaro copped to refusing to properly treat her dog Pasha, which had a large tumor on its face and 300 on its body.

How did the 52-year-old Victorville resident handle it?

By tying a rubber band around Pasha’s face that eventually became embedded in the tumor.

Pasha was in such bad shape when authorities recovered the dog that it “was euthanized due to irremediable pain and suffering,” according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office (OCDA).

This would not have been discovered had Pasha not walked in alone to the Hoag Memorial Hospital entrance in Newport Beach on Aug. 7, when witnesses saw the dog’s horrific face and ulcerated eye, the OCDA says.

The hospital witnesses contacted the Newport Beach Police Department, whose officers immediately took Pasha to an emergency veterinary facility. By then the dog was suffering from severe pain with inflammation obstructing its ability to breathe, the OCDA says.

Further investigation revealed that before August, Sodaro had taken Pasha to a veterinarian but refused treatment for the dog as well as free, humane euthanization, prosecutors report.

Sodaro pleaded guilty to misdemeanors: animal cruelty; failure to care for an animal; and animal at large in a public place.

In addition to the county jail time, she received three years of informal probation; prohibition from owning, possessing, caring for or living with animals; and orders to receive mental health counseling and to pay restitution.