On December 12, 2020, María Ávila and her sister, Patricia, were cleaning in the house of (Tappahannock, Virginia, 37 years old) in the Tarzana neighborhood (Los Angeles). The first, in addition to working for the singer as service personnel, was also the property’s housekeeper. That December day, one of the artist’s pets, a Caucasian shepherd, was in the backyard when María entered to take out the trash. The dog attacked her brutally, disfiguring her face and causing irreparable damage. Six years after that event for which he denounced his then boss, the sentence against Brown has been announced.
This Tuesday, June 30, a Los Angeles jury found the artist guilty after two weeks of trial and María Ávila for negligence. For her part, Patricia will receive $885,000 for moral damages; and the victim’s husband, $50,000. Although before the trial Brown accepted some responsibility, she disputed the severity of the injuries and argued that she was partly to blame. According to the artist, he had warned both of them personally that the dogs on the property were not friendly and they should not go outside the house unless they were accompanied by security personnel. The two employees denied having had such a conversation with Brown, noting that language differences would have made dialogue unlikely.
Maria, attacked by Hades, a 90-kilogram dog, explained during the trial that it tore off “large pieces of skin” and caused “permanent facial disfigurement, scars, loss of vision and nerve damage.” The singer also stated that Hades It was not his personal pet, but was bought and cared for by his bodyguard to protect the house from robberies: “I come across many cases of harassment,” he declared to the jury. As Brown points out, he fled the property after learning of the event. “Instead of calling 911 himself or assisting Ávila, he fled the bloody scene and drove for hours, leaving those tasks to his employees, claiming that he feared that a ‘media circus’ would break out if his voice was heard on the call or if he was present when the police arrived,” the aforementioned media reports.
Last week, the victim testified in court in Spanish thanks to an interpreter, and offered some of the chapters of this traumatic incident and what her recovery was like. “She said that surgeons removed skin from her abdomen to graft it onto her seriously injured arm, which caused intense pain and the inability to bend at the waist. The lacerations on her face required dozens of stitches. Restrictions due to the pandemic prevented her family from visiting her during the five days she was hospitalized, forcing her to face the terrible experience alone,” she reveals.
“I will never be the same again,” Maria acknowledged in the Los Angeles courtroom. Additionally, he revealed that nerve damage and chronic sensitivity on the left side “still make it difficult for him to sleep and perform basic daily tasks.” She added that she no longer has the strength in her arms to scrub the floor or wring the mop, and that the attack left her afraid of all dogs. This last reason, added to her physical limitations, has ended her career as a domestic worker: most of her former clients have dogs. Her daughter, Yoseline Espinoza, also testified and recalled the panicked call she received from her aunt: “She was very upset, telling me: ‘Your mother can’t breathe. She faints constantly. The ambulance hasn’t arrived yet. Chris Brown fled the scene’. I didn’t think she would survive.”
After the incident occurred, according to the singer’s version, he ran down the stairs and found his employee motionless on the floor: he locked the dog, called his security guard for help and crouched down to make sure Maria was breathing. He acknowledged that it was his representative who suggested he leave the place. “Because of what my image is and how it has always been used, I didn’t want a misleading story or a media circus because of my status. It’s a sensitive issue. That’s why I was advised to stay out of it,” he said.
Before the start of the trial, some jurors were dismissed from the selection process after stating that they could not be impartial due to Brown’s conviction. But this is not the only judicial process that he has been involved in in recent months. He is scheduled to appear before a London court next October for an alleged .
