MANDEL:: Dog at centre of estate battle returned to dead man’s family

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After a loved one dies, those left behind often tangle over money or perhaps that favourite piece of jewelry.

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But in a recent case that has cost both sides tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills, spawned a petition, a crowdsourcing campaign and a social media blitz, the sisters and former girlfriend of Leonard Carvalho are fighting over an American Bull Terrier named Rocco Jr.

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To Aliesha Verma, Rocco Jr. is her baby. To the law, he’s property and part of Carvalho’s estate – and she’s been recently ordered to hand him over to her late boyfriend’s two sisters, Arlete and Helga Carvalho.

The Brampton school teacher requested a stay while she appealed the order but that was denied as well.

“If you are a parent, you can imagine how you would feel if someone tried to take your child,” Verma wrote on Instagram Thursday.

According to a recent ruling, Carvalho and Verma began their relationship in August 2016 and Rocco Jr. was purchased for $800 cash on Feb. 22, 2022 while the couple was in Florida. The day after Carvalho, 60, suddenly died on Nov. 24, 2022, Verma went to his home and took Rocco Jr. from the backyard.  On the same date, his sisters, Arlete and Helga Carvalho, insisted the dog had been stolen and had to be returned.

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Verma refused and inevitably, they all landed in court and it wasn’t pretty. Verma claimed the dog was a gift from her common-law boyfriend and she needs him as an emotional support animal for generalized anxiety. Arlete Carvalho, as executor of the estate, argued the couple met on a “sugar daddy” website, there was no common-law relationship and that Rocco Jr. always belonged to her brother – and now, to his estate.

Neither Rocco Jr. nor Verma were mentioned in his will. But the judge was urged to take the best interests of the dog into consideration, with Verma insisting it was “unconscionable to rip this dog from her hands and provide it to the estate trustee as if he were nothing but a piece of furniture.”

Asked to play Solomon, Superior Court Justice Laura B. Stewart obviously couldn’t split the animal in two.

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“It is clear that both parties cared deeply for Mr. Carvalho and continue to care about Rocco Jr.,” she said in her decision.  “In order to decide this application, it is not necessary for the court to decide who loved whom more.”

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In the February ruling, the judge found that whether the relationship between Verma and Carvalho was “one of friendship, romantic love or business is irrelevant.” Rocco Jr. had been purchased by Carvalho, she concluded, and even if he once intended to gift him to Verma, he never did.

Carvalho had “possession and control” of the dog until his death, Stewart said, and his contentious texts and emails produced in court suggested he had no intention of letting Verma do anything more than visit him.

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“Rocco is mine,” he wrote her in April 2022. “Do not even think about taking him.”

The handover was ordered for March 15.

Verma’s bid for a stay was unsuccessful – with the motions judge finding her grounds for appeal aren’t likely to succeed and she hadn’t proved that she’d suffer irreparable harm. She was also ordered to pay $20,000 in legal costs.

The decision was crushing – Verma told her Instagram followers she was so distraught that she had to be hospitalized.

However, Verma vows to fight on – she’s raised more than $32,000 and has started a petition urging lawmakers to recognize pets as family members and not mere property.

In January, British Columbia became the first province in Canada to change the family law act so that custody of “companion animals” is no longer determined by simple ownership but judges can consider what’s in the best interest of the pet.

“All I know is I love Rocco and Rocco loves me,” Verma wrote on her GoFundMe page. “We are each other’s world. What Rocco knows is me as his mom. What I know is him as my son.”

“No words can explain our bond, so I won’t even try,” she adds.

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