Federal Dogfighting Case of Former NFL Player Should Be Trigger to Create Animal Cruelty Crimes Section at U.S. Department of Justice

Before then-National Football League phenom Michael Vick reminded the American public that dogfighting was an ongoing scourge, there was LeShon Johnson. The Oklahoma native and former NFL player ran Krazyside Kennels in the early 2000s and was convicted under state law in 2004 for his dogfighting ways.

Yesterday, Mr. Johnson returned to our consciousness. This time, it was the federal government that indicted him for dogfighting, painting a picture of a man who didn’t learn his lesson and who housed nearly 200 dogs to conscript them into fights.

“Johnson selectively bred ‘champion’ and ‘grand champion’ fighting dogs,” the Department of Justice media release explained. “Johnson marketed and sold stud rights and offspring from winning fighting dogs to other dog fighters looking to incorporate the Mal Kant Kennels ‘bloodline’ into their own dog fighting operations.”

The nation got a rude introduction to the slangy kennel names and the language of dogfighting with Michael Vick and Bad Newz Kennels in southern Virginia. According to papers released at the time by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Vick complex included “shed and kennels associated with housing fighting dogs and hosting dog fighting; approximately 54 American Pit Bull Terriers, some of which have scars and injuries appearing to be related to dog fighting, a ‘rape stand,’ a device in which a female dog who is too aggressive to submit to males for breeding is strapped down with her head held in place by a restraint; a ‘break’ or ‘parting’ stick used to pry opening fighting dogs’ mouths during fights; treadmills and ‘sat mills’ used to condition fighting dogs; and other items.”

These revelations were hardly unfamiliar to me. But the normal details of dogfighting were so vivid and jarring to the American public that animal-fighting reform efforts turned into a runaway wildfire, with more than 40 states upgrading their anti-animal fighting laws in the wake of the Vick prosecution.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said it’s a new day at the Department of Justice with her involved. “The Department of Justice will prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law and will remain committed to protecting innocent animals from those who would do them harm,” said Bondi, who had an unmistakably strong record on animal protection during her time as Florida attorney general.

LeShon Johnson Reminds Us That Animal Fighters Don’t Easily Bow Out

As is true for so many other dogfighters and cockfighters, LeShon Johnson’s involvement in the work of animal fighting has been all consuming and self-defining. This set of enthusiasts breeds the animals, train them, and fight them, selling off the bloodlines of dogs who are killers in the pits and culling the losers who escape the pits with their lives. They are addicts, and only bankrupting them or incarcerating them for a long time may cause them to change their ways.

The only thing Johnson learned after his arrest, as with a lot of other career criminals, was to be more cagey and more clandestine about his fights and his animals. A state charge for animal cruelty only appeared to be a speed bump on his deep and long ride into the violent world of dogfighting.

Animal-fighting enthusiasts will keep at it unless law enforcement shows them that their involvement in animal cruelty will be met with the iron hand of the law.

LeShon Johnson’s cockfighting brethren are of the same psychology. But they’ve even gotten involved politically to try to weaken state felony-level penalties for animal fighting in his home state of Oklahoma. They introduced three bills this year to weaken Oklahoma’s 2002 voter-approved initiative to outlaw cockfighting—not because they are criminal justice reformers, but because they are criminals who intend to keep on with their activities. They want to reduce the risks for their knowing criminal conduct.

In fact, since 2004, animal fighters have worked with their allies in the Oklahoma Senate and House to introduce more than 100 bills to weaken the law. Fortunately, not one of them has passed.

A Surge of Action Against Dogfighting

Because of our pushing and prodding, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has recently taken significant action against dogfighting operations across the country, resulting in multiple arrests and convictions. Here are some notable cases:

• Jose Miguel Carrillo of Spring Hill, Fla., was sentenced in February 2025 to seven years in prison for his involvement in a dogfighting conspiracy and for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Carrillo conspired with others to acquire and breed dogs for use in dog fights.
  
  
• In December 2024, Frederick Douglass Moorefield Jr., a former Department of Defense deputy chief, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for his involvement in a multi-state dogfighting conspiracy. Moorefield was among two men charged with promoting and furthering an animal fighting venture.
  
  
• In February 2024, the DOJ indicted 14 men from Georgia, Florida, and Alabama for participating in a large-scale dogfighting event in April 2022. Authorities rescued 78 fighting dogs during this operation.
  
  
• In September 2024, authorities uncovered a dogfighting ring in Tyler, Texas, where nearly 60 dogs were found in poor condition, indicating their involvement in fights.
  
  
• In January 2025, Vincent Burrell was sentenced to 475 years in prison after being convicted on 93 counts of dog fighting and 10 counts of animal cruelty in Paulding County, Ga. More than 100 chained dogs were discovered on his property in November 2022.

There are more.

Sadly, we cannot produce a similar roster of federal cockfighting cases. Or prosecutions under the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act. Why? Because the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division has not been assigned enough personnel to take down these networks of vicious cruelty.

Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act Needed

With Bondi, the weak-kneed, indifferent approach to animal cruelty crimes across the nation may now change. And it looks like her instincts may be fortified by the new head of the FBI, who also made a statement about the LeShon Johnson case. “The FBI will not tolerate criminals that harm innocent animals for their twisted form of entertainment,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “The FBI views animal cruelty investigations as a precursor to larger, organized crime efforts, similar to trafficking and homicides. This is yet another push in the FBI’s crackdown of violent offenders harming our most innocent.”

With the introduction last month of the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act in the U.S. House — led by Reps. David Joyce, R-Ohio, Joe Neguse, D-Colo., Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. — a bipartisan team of lawmakers is offering up that same argument. They are calling for the creation of an Animal Cruelty Crimes section within the DOJ, a team of prosecutors focused on animal cruelty. While they’re at it, it makes sense to have a dedicated policing unit within the FBI, too.

So many of the boys and young men involved in mass shootings start their descent into violence and mayhem by committing animal cruelty. Teenage gunman Payton Gendron, arrested for gunning down 13 people in a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022, stabbed and decapitated a feral cat, according to several sources, including the Buffalo News. Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old who massacred 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas, allegedly boasted to friends that he “tortured” animals. These two young men are among the latest examples in a long list of mass shooters and serial killers who got started with animal cruelty.

U.S.-based cockfighters are business partners with cartels and other organized crime associations, and they may be trafficking a million fighting animals to supply fighting pits in other nations, especially Mexico. In December 2024, four people were murdered at a Mexican cockfighting arena, including “El Chabelo,” a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. In November 2024, cockfighting enthusiast and son-in-law of cartel leader “El Mencho” was arrested in Riverside County. In late January 2024, 14 people were wounded and six murdered, including a 16-year-old from eastern Washington, at a cockfighting derby in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Months before, also in Mexico, 20 people were massacred at a cockfighting derby, including a Chicago woman.

Organized criminals control the cockfighting venues in the Philippines, too — and that nation, after Mexico, is the second largest destination for illegally trafficked fighting birds from the United States. In the Philippines, there were 32 people kidnapped from cockfights in 2022 and never found. And there was an estimated $13 billion wagered on online cockfights (called “e-sabong”).

What more do we need to document the need for dedicated enforcement capacity to address this mayhem, menace, and cruelty? Cruelty is a warning sign for the violent tendencies of individuals who will assuredly threaten our communities as they mingle with organized crime networks.

Just as Michael Vick’s arrest led to a surge in state lawmaking nearly two decades ago, let’s hope that LeShon Johnson’s second arrest results in the creation of federal enforcement capacity to scale up policing and prosecuting so that our nation can pull up these criminal enterprises by the root.

I know you understand the risks of our investigators sniffing out and breaking up cockfighting and dogfighting rings. Will you support our ongoing investigations into these despicable, corrosive activities?