The House on Moonlight Road
Though Michael Vick
insists he knew
nothing of alleged
dogfighting on a
Virginia property he
owned, the case has
cast shadow over the
star quarterback,
alarmed the NFL and
called attention to
pro athletes'
involvement in the
grisly pastime.
Posted: Tuesday May 29, 2007 9:22AM; Updated: Tuesday May 29, 2007 12:51PM
The
brick
house
Atlanta
Falcons
quarterback
Michael
Vick
owned
on
Moonlight
Road
in
rural
Smithfield,
Va.,
is
painted
white.
It
has
a
white
door,
a
white
fence
and
a
huge
white
gate
that
opens
on a
spare
front
lawn
holding
a
white
birdbath.
In
the
woods
behind
the
house,
out
of
view
from
the
road,
stand
five
smaller
buildings.
These
are
painted
black
--
not
gray
or
charcoal,
but
pure
black,
as
if
they'd
been
dipped
in
ink.
They
are
set
off
from
the
house
by a
fence,
also
painted
black.
Kathy Strouse, an animal control officer, was standing in front of those outbuildings as night fell on April 25 when a simple question came to her: Why the black paint? A moment passed before Strouse had an answer. At night, when most dogfights are held, no one would know these buildings were here.
Strouse, 54, is a member of the Virginia Animal Fighting Task Force, a consortium of animal control and law enforcement officials from around the state. She serves as an expert witness in dogfighting trials and teaches investigative tactics to animal control officers nationwide. As she and officers from the Surry County sheriff's office probed each of the back buildings and the rest of the 15-acre property that night, she saw what she considers unmistakable evidence of a professional dogfighting operation.
In one building a scale hung from the ceiling. There were treadmills to exercise the animals and a "rape stand," a contraption that holds aggressive dogs in place during breeding. In other buildings Strouse found syringes as well as injectable diuretics and nutritional supplements commonly given to fighting dogs. Stuck in the ground between two buildings was a metal shaft with a tethering arm, designed to keep a dog walking in a circle. Like the treadmill, this setup can be used as part of what dogfighters call the "keep," the training regimen before a fight.
A long building held numerous kennels, each of which contained at least one dog. Most were American pit bull terriers. Some had wounds on their ears, necks and front legs. Contrary to early reports, those 30 or so dogs were not emaciated, nor were the roughly 30 pit bulls found in the woods, tied to car axles buried in the ground. "Give the dogfighter his due," Strouse says. "It is not in his interest to starve his dogs."
It
was
clear
to
Strouse,
who
has
been
an
animal
control
officer
for
22
years,
that
some
of
the
animals
had
been
used
in
fights,
but
not
until
she
climbed
a
stepladder
to
the
second
story
of
the
largest
of
the
black
buildings
was
she
convinced
that
fights
had
been
staged
on
the
property.
In a
room
about
16
feet
square
Strouse
found
blood:
a
smear
on
one
wall,
splashes
near
the
base
of
walls,
a
spattering
on a
jacket
hanging
from
an
air
conditioner.
She
also
found
a
dog
tooth
on a
bucket.
Yet
the
most
convincing
evidence
that
this
was
the
"pit"
--
the
dogfighting
arena
--
was
the
rectangular
area
in
the
middle
of
the
room
devoid
of
blood.
"Dogfighters
put
down
carpet
to
give
their
dogs
traction,"
Strouse
says.
Investigators would eventually find a bloodstained carpet elsewhere on the property, and later Strouse would proclaim to a friend, "We got him. We got Michael Vick."
But neither the case, nor Vick's connection to it, is so clear-cut. Since the raid, Vick, 26, has proclaimed his innocence and blamed family members who lived in the house for what was found there. "It's unfortunate I have to take the heat," he said to reporters in New York City on April 27, a day before the NFL draft. "Lesson learned for me."
As of Monday, Surry County commonwealth's attorney Gerald Poindexter had not filed animal-welfare charges against anyone in the case, including Vick and his cousin, 26-year-old Davon Boddie, whose arrest on suspicion of drug possession sparked the raid. (Boddie gave police the Moonlight Road address as his place of residence; when searching the property they found probable cause to seek a second warrant involving animal cruelty.)
Poindexter has said he's convinced dogfighting took place on Moonlight Road but also that he hasn't yet found enough evidence to charge anyone. He said he has no eyewitnesses to fights there and noted that as many as 10 people might have had access to the property. Two schools of thought have thus emerged based on the information uncovered so far: Vick is either, as some in the animal welfare community believe, the financier of a large dogfighting operation and an aficionado of that blood sport, or, he is, as he said, a victim of poor choices made by those around him.
A source close to Vick with links to the NFL told SI last week that those two characterizations
oversimplify the situation. "Mike really loves dogs," said the source, who asked not to be named. "It's the country side of him coming out. He doesn't believe he's doing anything wrong. It's a cultural thing for him that got worse as he got the means to support his friends who are more into [dogfighting] than him.... He's heavily influenced by a dogfighting culture that travels to Baltimore, [Washington] D.C. and Virginia for fights." The source also said that Vick was frequently at the Moonlight Road house in past off-seasons.
Two other Vick associates told SI.com's Don Banks that the quarterback knew about the dogfighting at the house on Moonlight Road and cited his "affinity" for the dogfighting subculture. On Sunday, ESPN's Outside the Lines aired an interview with a confidential source who said he personally saw Vick gambling on his own dog at a fight in 2000 and that Vick was "one of the heavyweights" of the dogfighting world.
Vick has declined further comment, citing the advice of his attorney, Larry Woodward, who did not respond to messages left by SI. In his comments after the allegations arose, Vick said, "It's a call for me to really tighten down on who I'm trying to take care of. When it all boils down, people will try to take advantage of you and leave you out to dry."
Accused athletes often claim they're targets of smear campaigns. In this case Vick indeed seems a marked man. To Strouse and others, including officials from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), who have seen dogfighting grow into what they call a multimillion-dollar industry with its own magazines, underground highlight DVDs and even music (videos by rappers such as DMX and Jay-Z pay homage to the sport), seeing Vick implicated in a dogfighting case would be like landing the great white whale. They've been building a case against Vick in the press and have forwarded material to Surry County law enforcement to help the investigation. Their motives are twofold: They believe Vick was involved, claiming they've heard from informants for years that he was into dogfighting. And, perhaps more important, an indictment filed against one of the NFL's signature stars would boost their broader efforts to combat the grisly pastime of dogfighting, which is a felony in every state but Idaho and Wyoming (where it is a misdemeanor).
"There exists a dogfighting subculture in the NFL and NBA," says Wayne Pacelle, president of the HSUS. "And to have an athlete of [Vick's] stature charged would be an enormous wake-up call to everyone in professional sports who has dabbled in or dived into the underworld of dogfighting."
Dogfighting cases are often difficult to prove and are largely built on circumstantial evidence, says Mark
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Kumpf, an expert who has testified in several high-profile trials. When Poindexter met with investigators on May 21, the bulk of the evidence he reviewed was likely what was seized during the raid -- the rape stand, the "break stick" used to pry open a dog's jaws, the "keep" schedule written on the wall of one building. According to a search warrant executed on the Moonlight Road property, three envelopes addressed to "M. Vick" were also seized.
After the raid, authorities discovered that VicksK9Kennels.com, which offered pit bulls and presa canarios for sale, listed an address on Moonlight Road and was registered to one of Vick's companies, MV7 LLC. (The site has since shut down, and Vick put the Moonlight Road property up for sale.) The transport of dogs across state lines for the purposes of fighting is a federal offense, and an official from the United States Department of Agriculture, the federal agency that investigates dogfighting, attended the meeting between Poindexter and the county sheriff's department last week. Earlier Poindexter said "not to rule out" the possibility that federal authorities could play a role in the investigation.
Law enforcement officials are not the only ones attempting to ascertain Vick's involvement. The NFL is "taking this very seriously" according to league spokesman Greg Aiello. NFL security has offered its services to Surry County investigators, and the league has been questioning people with ties to the case.
The dogfighting allegations arise at a time when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is cracking down on players who run afoul of the law. "I was very clear with Michael," Goodell said after meeting with Vick on April 28. "People living in your house and people on your property [are] your responsibility. He needed to make sure he surrounded himself with people who were going to treat him properly and represent him the way he wanted to be."
Goodell has received letters from Pacelle and from U.S. congressman Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), who urged the commissioner "to act swiftly and forcefully" in the case. In addition the commissioner was compelled to address comments made by Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis, who excused dogfighting in an interview with Norfolk TV station WAVY. "It's [Vick's] property; it's his dogs. If that's what he wants to do, do it," Portis said. He added that if Vick were convicted of dogfighting, he would be "behind bars for no reason."
Animal control officials call this the "just dogs" mentality. "It's 'just dogs,'" explains Strouse, "so why does it matter?"
There are three types of dogfighters. One is the street fighter, who usually owns a single dog and fights it
"off the chain" in alleys or vacant lots. Another is the hobbyist, who might own a few dogs, squaring them off against other animals owned by close associates. And then there is the professional, who pays as much as $40,000 for a dog, breeds animals from past champions and and participates in well-organized, high-stakes fights often planned months in advance, with purses of up to $100,000.
In one case investigated by the HSUS, dogfight attendees were told to meet miles from the fight's location. They then had to relinquish their car keys and cellphones before being bused to the fight. Such secrecy explains why police are rarely able to raid live fights. Most busts -- including one in March in southern Ohio involving 64 dogs -- result from investigations of other crimes, typically involving drugs or guns.
One of the few law enforcement officials to penetrate a professional dogfighting ring is Jim Ward, an agent for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The operation he infiltrated involved former NFL running back LeShon Johnson, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to dogfighting in a case in which more than 200 dogs were seized and 20 people convicted. (Johnson received a five-year deferred sentence.) Ward attended two fights, the first a high-stakes match and the second a series of training fights during which 30 to 40 people, including Johnson, were "rolling" dogs -- trying them out to determine if they were "game" enough to fight. Both sets of fights were staged in a greenhouse, in a pit made of hinged plywood so that the walls could be folded down and the carpet rolled up in a moment.
"I was amazed at how all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds went to these fights," Ward, 36, says. "There was a kid there who was eight or nine years old, and there were some teenagers and then older men. But there were also women who had come with their boyfriends, as if on a date."
On the first night of fights, Ward witnessed matches with purses as high as $10,000. The evening was officiated by someone identified as a sanctioned "game dog" referee, who weighed the dogs and ensured they were a good pairing. The dogs were then bathed, a precaution against the practice of putting poison or other substances on a dog's coat to debilitate or repel the opponent. The two dogs were placed in opposite corners of the pit and released simultaneously.
"You know that sound of a dog ripping into meat? That is what you hear, and it is horrible," Ward says. "And a true fighting dog doesn't just bite. It holds on and shakes." Ward considered calling in agents who were performing surveillance to put an end to the carnage. "But I thought if I stayed and we got everyone involved, then maybe we could really put a stop to these people."
During one fight Ward watched as a red brindle female named Star was ripped apart. After her defeat,
her owner pulled out a gun and announced he was taking Star outside to kill her. Concerned that his surveillance team would hear the shot and move in, Ward quickly offered to buy the animal. He paid $60.
"I took her to the vet that night, and she needed more than 40 stitches," Ward says. Once home, he found her to be loyal and loving. But in the presence of another animal -- his Labrador retriever or one of his horses -- she attacked. "It's what the dogfighters call 'gameness,' that 'game blood,'" Ward says. "Eventually I had to put her down."
Ward saw firsthand how prominently Johnson, a 1994 draft pick out of Northern Illinois who played five seasons for three NFL teams, figured in the dogfighting world. His Krazyside Kennels had been a well-known and sought-after breeder; his dogs were branded with a "5," which law enforcement officials say may have been a reference to the number of victories a dog needs to be labeled a grand champion. The kennel's most famous dog, Nino, is a legend. In a lengthy testimonial on one breeder's website, riospitbull.com, Nino's exploits are described in a laudatory narrative signed by "Krazyside Kennels." The narrator writes of finding Nino in 1997 and fighting him in North Carolina, Arkansas, Kansas and, finally, New York. In Nino's last match, according to the account, he won a fight that lasted one hour and 48 minutes, despite having his ankle snapped in the first 30 seconds. (Some dogfights last as long as four hours.) "Everyone who doesn't believe this brutal stuff goes on should read that essay," Ward says.
When Johnson was arrested at his apartment in Tulsa in May 2004, agents found a calendar that detailed when he fought and bred his dogs. Fights were listed so far back that investigators believe Johnson fought dogs while still in the NFL. When a law enforcement agent asked Johnson if other football players were into the blood sport, "he avoided answering the question," Ward says. "It was like he was saying there were, but he didn't want to be the one to talk about them."
Johnson is one of a handful of athletes who have faced charges for dogfighting or spoken openly of their links to the practice. Former NBA player Qyntel Woods was accused in 2004 of staging fights at his home outside Portland and pleaded guilty to first-degree animal abuse. Former Dallas Cowboy Nate Newton was arrested at a fight in Texas in 1991. (Charges were later dropped.) Former boxer Gerald McClellan would watch tapes of dogs fighting before his own bouts and admitted putting his dog into fights. And former NFL player Tyrone Wheatley praised the spirit of fighting dogs in SI in 2001. But for all those identified, scores of others go unnamed, according to animal control officials and pro athletes interviewed by SI.
"[Fighting dogs] is a fun thing, a hobby, to some [athletes]," says an NFL Pro Bowl running back who asked not to be named. "People are crazy about pit bulls. Guys have these nice, big fancy houses, and there is always a pit bull in the back. And everyone wants to have the biggest, baddest dog on the block."
Certainly most athletes who own pit bulls, a breed that's growing in popularity across the U.S., keep them strictly as pets. "People who don't know anything about pit bulls see one and immediately think people are fighting them," says Sean Bailey, a University of Georgia football player with a breeding operation in Alpharetta, Ga. "I breed blue pit bulls, and the 'gameness' dogfighters talk about has been bred out of them."
Still, HSUS officials, who pay for information that leads to a conviction, say they regularly get tips about athletes' participation in dogfights and pass leads on to local law enforcement. Two weeks ago John Goodwin, the HSUS's animal fighting expert, received a tip that a former NBA player ran a fighting ring in Virginia not far from Vick's property. "We hear about athletes all the time," Goodwin says.
"There's a fine line between having a dog as a macho display and having that animal display those characteristics in a fight setting," says Pacelle, the HSUS president. "Athletes get pulled into the subculture. These are competitive people. They are competitive on the football field and on the basketball court, and they get competitive about their dogs."
Or, as the Pro Bowl running back put it, "Sometimes you just want to see how tough a dog you got."
Kathy Strouse will long remember the pit bulls she helped remove from Moonlight Road. Most were short, stocky and ferocious looking, but when she approached them and gave them treats, they were gentle and loving. "Those dogs were so happy, so delighted to have human contact," Strouse says. The animals were split up and sent to shelters around Virginia, the locations undisclosed for fear dogfighters might try to steal them. Eventually the animals will be euthanized. "These dogs can't be adopted," says Strouse. "You don't want dogs like these living next door. The only thought that gives me some comfort is, I would rather have them die while being held by someone who cares about them than in a fighting pit."
She pauses, composes herself and returns to the stack of papers she calls the latest research on the case. "There's so much here, I've barely had time to go through it all," Strouse says, sorting through pages of material she hopes will help reveal the truth of what went on in those blackened buildings on Moonlight Road.
George Dohrmann can be reached at George_Dohrmann@simail.com