Kentucky Cockfighting Investigations Lead to Federal Indictments Against 17 People

Some 17 Kentuckians face federal charges of fauna harshness fastened to cockfighting after beingness indicted past a grand jury. That’s according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky, which proclaimed the cases on Wednesday.

The charges came through iv indictments, for each one separate. Authorities say they found individuals either provision a cockfighting band or operating ace inward various parts of Eastern Kentucky.

The gruesome ritual of animate being fighting simply has no put inwards a civilized society,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Jodi Cohen, who heads the Louisville office, inward a statement. “Animal cruelty, however, is just now ace felonious facet surrounding this barbaric activity. Whether it is illegal gambling or the attempted putrefaction of our public officials, the crook initiative surrounding cockfighting trading operations will non be tolerated.”

Besides the FBI, the US Department of Agriculture, Kentucky State Police, and the Robert Indiana Gaming Commission also took piece inward the cockfighting investigation.

Charges Include Bribery, Conspiracy

Indictments came push down cobbler's last month, but the US Attorney’s Office made them public earlier this week.

In one case, Cruz Alejandro Mercado-Vazquez allegedly offered the A. E. W. Mason County sheriff bribes inwards excess of $5,000 twice inward 2020. The bill of indictment says the 43-year-old tried to give a cockfighting ringing in the county, most 60 miles magnetic north of Lexington.

Mercado-Vazquez also faces charges of buying, possessing, and preparation roosters for fighting purposes. With the graft counts, he faces upward to 10 years inward prison and a $250,000 fine.

In London, rough 130 miles S of Mason County, eight people were indicted by the grand jury inward connective with a cockfighting scheme.

Prosecutors take Rickie Johnson, 55, rented property from Harold “Fuzzy” Hale, 72, in 2021 and operated cockfights, with aid from Jacklyn Rachelle Johnson, 31. Five others, including Orville Asher, 39; Dallas Cope, 35; Hiram B. Creech, Jr., 47, Bradley Cye Rose, 72; and Joshua Westerfield, 36, face charges of exhibiting a rooster for cockfighting purposes.

A tertiary slip stems from an investigation into a tintinnabulation inward Manchester, located nigh 25 miles eastward of London. Investigators arrogate hebdomadary fights took come in there from November 2018 to January 2020.

Millard Oscar Hubbard, 72; Timothy Sizemore, 42; Beachel Collett, 28; Lester Collett, 25; and Justin Smith, 33, human face cabal charges as authorities aver they operated fights at the Riverside Game Club inwards the southeastern Bluegrass State town. Sizemore, who allegedly promoted the fights, faces an additional bursting charge of holding matches at the Blackberry Chicken Pit inwards Pike County. The site is roughly 70 miles NE of Manchester.

In the last case, the grand panel returned indictments on Walter H. Mitchell, 55; Jerrard McVey, 47; and Linda McVey, 42, on charges of conspiring to patronize and oppose animals at a localize called the “Valley,” on the edge of Nicholas and Ian Fleming counties, rough 40 miles northwards of Lexington.

According to the Appalachian News-Express, some of the individuals charged had worked for sheriff’s offices inward Lucius DuBignon Clay and Arthur Stanley Jefferson Laurel counties.

The individuals charged in the other trine cases all face Little Phoebe years slow bars and a fine of up to $250,000.

Kentucky and Cockfighting

While cockfighting takes come out across the country and abroad, it does make a long, infamous story in parts of Kentucky. State lawmakers did non reach a law that made involvement inwards the bloodsport a misdemeanor until 1974.

You can buoy go game to strong drink stores and encounter the Fighting Cock brandmark of Kentucky bourbon that includes an mental image of a rooster poised to attack.

Congress passed a natural law 20 years ago that made possessing and merchant vessels birds for cockfights illegal. Five years later, it became a federal felony.

In 2020 Animal Wellness Action issued a vituperative report showing the sportswoman remained prevalent inwards Kentucky. That included individuals who, the group claimed, bred birds and shipped them for fights across the world.

Animal Wellness Action President Anthony Wayne Pacelle praised authorities for their work on inward busting the rings.

“We go for that this week’s annunciation from the Department of Justice is its first of all in a serial publication of actions and announcements to unknot this criminal enterprise,” Pacelle said in a statement.