A 94-year-old woman was stabbed in broad daylight in a senseless attack. Now, her assaulter will avoid jail time due to a soft-on-crime judge.
Daniel Cauich brutally stabbed Anh “Peng” Taylor, an elderly Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant, multiple times in San Francisco in June 2021, the Daily Mail reported.
During a time when Asian Americans were especially targeted as victims of hate crimes, the attack reportedly sent “shockwaves” through the city.
Despite being convicted of the crime, Cauich’s defense attorney claimed that her client was homeless and had recently been hit by a car, causing mental health issues at the time of the attack
“When we were able to get through to him to tell him what he had done, the man cried,” attorney Lisa DewBerry told the San Francisco Standard of her client.
“He couldn’t believe he did such a thing to her.”
According to Judge Kay Tsenin, this “mental health” explanation was enough to get Cauich five years of probation instead of the 12-year prison sentence that Assistant District Attorney Phoebe Maffei recommended.
Instead of incarceration, the attacker will undergo a “behavioral and mental health treatment program.”
“I am giving you one last chance to stay out of state prison,” Tsenin told Cauich during the hearing, which also included a separate burglary charge.
According to Maffai, the sentence is far too light,
“[The stabbing] was senseless and horrifying and suggests a quick willingness to do harm to vulnerable people within our community,” she said.
Miraculously, the elderly victim survived the harrowing assault.
“After the attack, we moved her to an assisted living home,” her daughter, Vivianne Taylor, told the Standard.
“She is well-recovered and doing fine now,” she added.