Posted on 08/24/2007 2:49:07 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Atlanta Falcons Quarterback To Plead Guilty To Lesser Charges
(CBS News) RICHMOND, Va. The National Football league has suspended Michael Vick indefinitely after he pleaded guilty to charges related to dogfighting on Friday.
Vick filed his plea agreement in federal court Friday admitting to conspiracy in a dogfighting ring and helping kill pit bulls. He denied ever betting on the fights, only bankrolling them.
The Atlanta Falcons quarterback is scheduled to formally enter his plea Monday in U.S. District Court. He signed the plea agreement Thursday.
"Most of the Bad Newz Kennels operation and gambling monies were provided by Vick," a summary of facts in the case said, echoing language in plea agreements by three co-defendants who previously pleaded guilty.
The statement said that when the kennel's dogs won, the gambling proceeds were generally shared by Vick's three co-defendants — Tony Taylor, Purnell Peace and Quanis Phillips.
"Vick did not gamble by placing side bets on any of the fights. Vick did not receive any of the proceeds of the purses that were won by Bad Newz Kennels," the summary said.
According to the statement, Vick also was involved with the others in killing six to eight dogs that did not perform well in testing sessions last April. The dogs were executed by drowning or hanging.
"Vick agrees and stipulates that these dogs all died as a result of the collective efforts" of Vick and two of the co-defendants, Phillips and Peace, the statement said.
In the plea agreement, the government committed to recommending a sentence on the low end of the federal sentencing guideline range of a year to 18 months. However, the conspiracy charge is punishable by up to five years in prison, and the judge is not bound by any recommendation or by the sentencing guidelines.
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who will accept Vick's plea, has a reputation for imposing stiff sentences, according to lawyers who have appeared in his court. Vick will not be sentenced for several months.
"Our position has been that we are going to try to help Judge Hudson understand all the facts and Michael's role," Vick's lead defense attorney, Billy Martin, said in telephone interview. "Michael's role was different than others associated with this incident."
Martin said Vick will "speak to the public and explain his actions," but he declined to say whether that will occur in court or in a news conference after Monday's hearing.
It is not uncommon in plea agreements for the defendant to plead guilty to only one charge and to negotiate with prosecutors over the specific facts to which he’ll admitting, CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen said. In this case, prosecutors may not care that he’s not admitted to gambling so long as he gets a significant prison sentence.
The U.S. attorney's office, which has declined to comment on the case, said it would issue a statement after the hearing.
The case began in April when authorities conducting a drug investigation of Vick's cousin raided the former Virginia Tech star's Surry County property and found dozens of dogs, some injured, and equipment commonly used in dogfighting.
A federal indictment issued in July charged Vick, Peace, Phillips and Taylor with an interstate dogfighting conspiracy. Vick initially denied any involvement, and all four men pleaded innocent.
Taylor was the first to change his plea to guilty, saying Vick financed the dogfighting ring's gambling and operations. Peace and Phillips soon followed, disclosing that Vick joined them in killing dogs that did not perform well in test fights.
The sickening details outlined in the indictment and other court papers prompted a public backlash against Vick, who had been one of the NFL's most popular players.
Vick was barred from the Falcons training camp, but neither the NFL nor the team have taken further action.
Meanwhile, Vick's father said he asked his son to give up dogfighting, or to at least put property used in the venture in the names of others to avoid being implicated, according to a report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In The Journal-Constitution report posted on the newspaper's Web site Thursday night, Michael Boddie, who is estranged from Vick and the quarterback's mother, also said some time around 2001 his son staged dogfights in the garage of the family home in Newport News, Va.
Boddie told the newspaper Vick kept fighting dogs in the family's backyard, including dogs that were "bit up, chewed up, exhausted." Boddie claimed to have nursed the dogs back to health.
The indictment against Vick does not mention the parents' former home in Newport News.
In the report, Boddie dismissed the idea that Vick's longtime friends were the main instigators of the dogfighting operation.
"I wish people would stop sugarcoating it," Boddie told The Journal-Constitution. "This is Mike's thing. And he knows it ... likes it, and he has the capital to have a set up like that."
More than 50 pit bulls seized from Vick's property faced a Thursday deadline to be claimed or be euthanized.
Federal prosecutors filed court documents last month to condemn 53 pit bulls seized in April as part of the investigation into dogfighting on the Vick's property. No one has claimed any of the dogs, which are being held at several unspecified shelters in eastern Virginia, the U.S. Attorney's office said.
The report said Boddie and the quarterback have had a volatile relationship for years and that his son has refused to speak with him directly for the last 2½ half months.
Boddie, 45, lives in an apartment his son has paid the rent on for the last three years. Vick, who has a $130 million contract with the Falcons, also gives him a couple of hundred dollars every week or two, the father told the newspaper.
In the report, Boddie also said he asked Vick for $1 million, spread out over 12 years, Vick declined, the father said. Recently, Boddie asked Vick, through an assistant, for $700,000 to live on.
Did anyone out there NOT see this coming?
In a few years, when all the hoopla dies down, he’ll be quietly reinstated.
Nothing like screwing up a 130 million$ job. What a fool.
Took ‘em long enough! They were trying to figure which is the bigger offense, torturing and murdering dogs, or gambling.
Too many hard hits?
“Vick did not gamble by placing side bets on any of the fights. Vick did not receive any of the proceeds of the purses that were won by Bad Newz Kennels,”
NO one believes that...get real
"But there is evidence to suggest that its growth nationally is related to its adoption as a part of violent street culture. "
There goes my fantasy draft!
I wish they would put him in the dog pound with about 25 pit bulls who have been tortured by these scum who think it's macho to own these dogs and teach them to kill.
“But there is evidence to suggest that its growth nationally is related to its adoption as a part of violent street culture. “
we are going down the crapper
these people don’t live in taffiniland, this kind of conduct is not allowed
Unless he admits to the gambling part, then Vick could be in for long term trouble with the NFL.
That's right...he was the ring leader and financier of the whole operation.
He admitted to gambling as part of the statement of facts he signed.
You’d be correct if Tagliabue were still Commissioner, but he’s not. Roger Goodell is. And Michael Vick lied to Goodell’s face about this entire situation.
Vick will never play in the NFL again.
“The man” continues his oppression of poor Michael Vick(tim). < /sarcasm>
Some CFL team will take him.
“BREAKING — NFL Suspends Michael Vick indefinitely”
Good. They have an over-abundance of running backs anyway.
GOOD let that dog killer rot
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.