http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1124081vick1.html?link=rssfeedMore Michael Vick Barbarism Bared
USDA report details how football star killed pit bulls, lied to FBI
NOVEMBER 24--In the most disturbing account yet of Michael Vick's dogfighting operation, a federal investigative report details how the disgraced athlete killed pit bulls by hanging them from a nylon cord nailed to a tree and drowned others in a five gallon bucket of water. Quoting confidential witnesses and several of Vick's cronies (all of whom, like the former NFL star, pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges), a United States Department of Agriculture report portrays Vick as a heartless enthusiast of barbaric pit bull fights. Excerpts of the USDA report, which was prepared by the agency's inspector general, can be found on the following pages. Along with killing underperforming pit bulls, a government informant told investigators that Vick twice placed family pets into the ring with pit bulls because he and his cohorts "thought it was funny to watch the pit bulls...injure or kill the other dogs." Purnell Peace, who was convicted along with Vick, told federal agents how he, Vick, and a third man had to drown one dog after it did not die when they tried to hang the animal. After Vick agreed last year to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, he was interviewed by federal agents and claimed that he "never actually killed a dog," though he admitted watching his friends hang, shoot, and electrocute pit bulls. But after failing an October 2007 FBI polygraph test "as it related to the killings of the dogs," Vick recanted his denial and "admitted taking part in the actual hanging of the dogs." Vick, 28, is expected tomorrow to plead guilty to state dogfighting charges in Virginia and receive a three-year suspended sentence. The former Atlanta Falcon quarterback is serving his federal sentence in a Leavenworth, Kansas prison, and is scheduled to be released from custody next July
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