Kentucky Cockfighting Investigations Lead to Federal Indictments Against 17 People

Some 17 Kentuckians human face federal charges of animate being inhuman treatment tied to cockfighting after existence indicted past a grand jury. That’s according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky, which announced the cases on Wednesday.

The charges came through and through quadruplet indictments, to each one separate. Authorities say they found individuals either planning a cockfighting tintinnabulation or operating I in various parts of Eastern Kentucky.

The gruesome ritual of fauna fighting simply has no localise in a civilised society,” said FBI Special Agent inward Charge Jodi Cohen, who heads the Louisville office, inward a statement. “Animal cruelty, however, is just now ane outlaw aspect surrounding this barbaric activity. Whether it is illegal play or the attempted putrefaction of our public officials, the malefactor endeavor surrounding cockfighting trading operations testament not live tolerated.”

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

Charges Include Bribery, Conspiracy

Indictments came downwards finally month, but the US Attorney’s Office made them public before this week.

In ane case, Cruz Alejandro Mercado-Vazquez allegedly offered the James Neville Mason County sheriff bribes inwards excessiveness of $5,000 twice inward 2020. The indictment says the 43-year-old tried to found a cockfighting doughnut inwards the county, virtually 60 miles due north of Lexington.

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

In London, roughly 130 miles due south of A. E. W. Mason County, viii people were indicted by the grand jury inwards connectedness with a cockfighting scheme.

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

A thirdly pillowcase stems from an investigating into a halo in Manchester, located nigh 25 miles eastward of London. Investigators claim hebdomadal fights took place in that respect from November 2018 to January 2020.

Millard Oscar Hubbard, 72; Timothy Sizemore, 42; Beachel Collett, 28; Lester Collett, 25; and Justin Smith, 33, face conspiracy charges as authorities say they operated fights at the Riverside Game Club inwards the southeastern Kentucky town. Sizemore, who allegedly promoted the fights, faces an additional armorial bearing of holding matches at the Blackberry Chicken Pit in Pike County. The situation is roughly 70 miles NE of Manchester.

In the last case, the grand jury returned indictments on Bruno Walter H. Mitchell, 55; Jerrard McVey, 47; and Linda McVey, 42, on charges of conspiring to patronise and scrap animals at a localize called the “Valley,” on the border of St. Nicholas and Ian Fleming counties, roughly 40 miles northerly of Lexington.

According to the Appalachian News-Express, some of the individuals supercharged had worked for sheriff’s offices inwards the Great Compromiser and Stan Laurel counties.

The individuals supercharged in the other trine cases all human face quint years behind bars and a mulct of upwardly to $250,000.

Kentucky and Cockfighting

While cockfighting takes shoes crossways the country and abroad, it does make a long, infamous account inward parts of Kentucky. State lawmakers did not overtake a jurisprudence that made involvement in the bloodsport a misdemeanour until 1974.

You tin can move to spirits stores and feel the Fighting Cock brandmark of Kentucky bourbon that includes an range of a rooster poised to attack.

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

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

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

“We hope that this week’s declaration from the Department of Justice is its for the first time inward a serial of actions and announcements to unravel this felonious enterprise,” Pacelle said in a statement.