[vincesanity82]

Gettin' All CSI On The Dogs

Dr. Melinda Merck of Canton, one of the nation's top forensic veterinarians, is assisting the prosecution in the investigation of dogfighting at property owned by Falcons quarterback Michael Vick in Surry County, Va., she confirmed Monday.
Merck said she was working with the Surry County sheriff's office and Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter.
Merck said she had no knowledge of what was removed from Vick's property on Thursday, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of the Inspector General executed a warrant —- the third at the property.
"I wasn't involved in that aspect," Merck said. "I have no direct knowledge of what they found, and no one has called [Monday] to give me an update."
Merck said she couldn't comment on the specifics of her role in the investigation.
Sheriff Harold Brown has said that he planned to set up a meeting this week to review the evidence in the case.
Federal officials have declined comment about what they were searching for or what was found on the property during the search.
Merck, who founded the Cat Clinic of Roswell in 1990, is considered one of the top animal crime scene investigators in the nation, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In December, Merck was the forensic veterinarian who testified in the Fulton County case in which two brothers were charged with torturing a puppy and then putting it in a heated oven to die. The case ended in a hung jury, and the brothers then pleaded guilty and were given the maximum sentence of five years on the felony animal abuse charges.
In April, she was part of a team that seized 45 dogs, including 44 pit bulls, in Pass Christian, Miss., and St. Bernard Parish, La., in a dogfighting investigation.
Merck and Randall Lockwood co-authored an award-winning book, "Forensic Investigation of Animal Cruelty: A Guide for Veterinarians and Law Enforcement Professionals."
Police executed a search warrant at Vick's property in April in a drug investigation involving his cousin. The next day, a second warrant was executed to investigate dogfighting and animal cruelty. Nearly 70 dogs, mostly pit bulls, and other evidence investigators believed associated with dogfighting was seized.
Last week, acting on information from an informant, federal authorities executed a third warrant at the property. The previous week, local investigators failed to execute a warrant requested by a federal investigator to search the property for buried dog carcasses and tools.

Local veterinarian assists Vick probe | ajc.com

[Gotham Dark Knight]

So for those of you keeping score at home...

That is "Fed bring in an expert for Vick...Feds not even interested in abuse case before Vick."...

[Atlanta Falcons News]

The Atlanta Falcons could fire Michael Vick, who owns a house that has been the subject of a probe into illegal dogfighting, and face few, if any, negative legal consequences, according to three labor and employment lawyers.

Whether the Falcons would cut ties with their star quarterback is unclear. While the dogfighting investigation has caused bad publicity, Vick has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

Also, even though taking Vick off the roster would save the team a lot of money, it couldn't immediately spend that money on a new player. The National Football League salary cap system, which limits how much teams can pay their players, would still consider Vick's salary part of the Falcons' total.


"I don't think the Falcons would terminate Vick, even if they have the legal right to do so" under the terms of his contract, said Epstein Becker & Green partner Ken G. Menendez, who advises companies in employment and contract disputes.

"He's just too big of an investment," Menendez said.

Law.com - Lawyers: Sacking Falcons QB Vick Would Be Legal, but Costly

[vincesanity82]

FEDS WISELY AREN'T SHARING INFO WITH POINDEXTER

There has been an eerie silence for the past week or so regarding the Mike Vick dog-fighting investigation. A big part of the reason, in our view, is that the federal authorities are smart enough to realize that nothing positive flows from talking to the media about the inner workings of the case.

So it should surprise no one that the first update in the past several days comes not from the feds, but from Surry County, Virginia prosecutor Gerald Poindexter, who has shown no restraint when it comes to talking to the media (often out of both sides of his mouth) regarding the investigation.

Per the Virginian-Pilot, Poindexter says that the federal officials have recently been in touch with him. But Poindexter said that the feds didn't say whether they had found dead dog on the property during a June 7 search.

"I don't know if they found the carcasses or not," Poindexter said. "They didn't tell me."

Why would they? So that Poindexter could call a press conference to announce it?

Frankly, we're surprised that the feds are having any contact with Poindexter. Our guess is that their goal is to keep an eye on his "work" without telling him anything about the federal investigation that he then could blab to the press.

As to the investigation being conducted by Surry County authorities, Sheriff Harold Brown says that he still has three or four persons to interview.

The fact that the flow of information has died down doesn't mean that the case is languishing. If anything, this period fairly could be characterized as the calm before the coming storm.

ProFootballTalk.com -- The Best Pro Football Scoop on the Internet

[vincesanity82]

VICK GETTING IMUSED?

Our pal Michael David Smith, who moonlights for AOL's FanHouse when he isn't holding down the fort here (or is it the other way around?), writes that the Humane Society is calling on Nike to sever ties with Falcons quarterback Mike Vick due to allegations that Vick's Surry County, Virginia property has hosted illegal dog fighting.

The full text of the letter is right here.

The reasoning is that, even though Vick hasn't been charged with a crime (yet), it's obvious that at a bare minimum he has been unacceptably sloppy about what he has allowed others to do on land he owns.

Without access to Vick's contract with the shoe-making giant, we can't tell whether Nike can cut the cord at no further obligation to him based on the evidence that already is available. Despite the absence of an indictment (yet), Vick's silence in the wake of story after story cementing his link to the operation is troubling.

And the Humane Society's letter to Nike could be the first step in an effort to get other big-money corporations to act. If, for example, Vick is arrested for dog fighting and the NFL doesn't move swiftly to suspend him, the Humane Society and other groups could commence an assault against the league's corporate partners. And once the folks who pay the big money for the right to be the official something-or-other of the NFL explain to Commissioner Roger Goodell that they can't risk a product like Snickers being thrust into a national social controversy (eye roll), the league might have no choice but to take action against Vick.

The test case is Nike. If the Humane Society can prompt the folks who put a swoosh on shoes throughout the world to pull the plug on the Michael Vick experience, the Humane Society will have even more juice when the time comes to release the hounds on the NFL.

ProFootballTalk.com -- The Best Pro Football Scoop on the Internet

[vincesanity82]

LOCAL AUTHORITIES NOT MOVING ON VICK CASE by Michael David Smith
When federal authorities announced on June 8 that they were investigating dog fighting on property owned by Falcons quarterback Mike Vick, the local authorities said they were continuing to move forward with their own investigation.

Specifically, Surry County Sheriff Harold Brown and Commonwealth attorney Gerald Poindexter said they expected to meet within the next week to review evidence collected in the investigation.

It's been more than two weeks since the local authorities said they would have that meeting, but today the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that authorities have not held a second evidence review. They also haven't gathered any additional evidence from the property. That raises the question of how, exactly, they can say they're moving forward when they haven't reviewed the evidence that they already had or gone looking for any new evidence.

This is the latest example of why anyone who wants the truth to come out in this investigation should be thankful that the feds got involved. Vick's property was raided in April, and for more than two months we've heard conflicting stories from Poindexter about what his office would do with the evidence gathered at that raid. Every time Poindexter opens his mouth, he comes across as more clueless.

The feds, wisely, are keeping quiet and keeping Poindexter out of their investigation.

ProFootballTalk.com -- The Best Pro Football Scoop on the Internet

[vincesanity82]

VICK'S COUSIN BRACING FOR CHARGES?

A league source with connections to the Eastern Virginia legal community tells us that there is talk in the local bar that Davon Boddie, the cousin of Falcons quarterback Mike Vick, has plunked down a $1 million retainer with a criminal defense lawyer who specializes in federal matters, in the event that Boddie is indicted for dog fighting or other charges arising from his status as the main resident of Vick's Surry County, Virginia home.

Last month, Boddie refused during an interview with WAVY-TV to talk about the situation. "I got a little French poodle, man," he said. "That's all I know."

Boddie also suggested during the interview that the 60-plus dogs that were seized from the Vick property in late April had been planted there by authorities.

If this specific item from the rumor mill among Eastern Virginia lawyers is true (and we're not saying that it is), a reasonable inference would be that Team Vick sees Boddie as someone who could be flipped by the feds, and thus Team Vick has opted to make a generous advance donation to Boddie's legal defense fund.

If Vick is paying for the representation of Boddie, it also raises questions regarding the independence of the lawyer. Rule 5.4(c) of the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct states that "[a] lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, employs, or pays the lawyer to render legal service for another to direct or regulate the lawyer's professional judgment in rendering such legal services."

In English, this means that the lawyer's job (if Boddie has indeed hired a lawyer with a seven-figure retainer financed by Vick) is to protect and advance the best interests of Davon Boddie, even if Boddie's best interests are adverse to the interests of the guy who might have signed the check.

For example, if the feds offer Boddie a sweetheart plea deal in return for testimony against Vick, the lawyer can't advise Boddie against taking the deal because the lawyer believes that part of what he is being paid for is to protect Mike Vick. The lawyer needs to make the right decision for Boddie, even if it means recommending that Boddie snitch on his cousin.

Of course, whether Boddie would ever go Sammy the Bull on Vick is a completely different issue. Boddie might very well be willing to go to jail for Vick -- especially if the pool from which the possible $1 million retainer was paid can also be used to make it up to Boddie once he's out of the big house.

ProFootballTalk.com -- The Best Pro Football Scoop on the Internet

[JRL]

I guess we are to believe a guy on welfare can spring for a big time lawyer

Vick may, even if guilty, dodge this like he does linebackers

[vincesanity82]

A VICK SUMMARY AND REALITY CHECK

On Friday, ESPN proclaimed that Falcons quarterback Mike Vick likely won't be indicted by federal authorities in connection with the investigation regarding the dog-fighting operation, known according to a federal complaint as "Bad Newz Kennels," that was housed on property that he owns.

On Friday night, we called out ESPN for trying to play both sides of the fence on the Vick issue, reporting on one hand that he's a "heavyweight" among dog fighters and on the other hand that he's likely to get away with it.

Apparently, the Friday night/Saturday morning mission of chief Vick apologist Len Pasquarelli was to try to harmonize the contradictory ESPN reports.

Good luck with that.

Amazingly, Len characterizes the overall events of Friday, on which federals investigators wanted to find, and did find, ten more dog carcasses in shallow graves on property that Vick owns (did we mention that he owns the property where the dead dogs were found?) as a positive for Vick, since it came with the news that he's not likely to be named in the first wave of indictments.

In the last line of the story, Len calls Friday's events a "respite" for Vick and the Falcons organization.

A respite? What will he call the day that Vick does a perp walk? A brief detour through a meadow of daisies?

Though Pasquarelli (and, vicariously, ESPN) acknowledges that Vick shouldn't exhale yet and that the "ongoing investigation" could still entangle the guy who owns the property hosting the dog fighting operation named for the slang reference to the town where he was raised, the overall tone of Len's latest item is that Vick is, was, and probably will be deemed innocent, and that anyone who thinks otherwise either is jumping to unwarranted conclusions, or is a racist.

But let's summarize the available evidence:

1. Vick owned the property from which more than 50 dogs and evidence of dog fighting were seized in late April.

2. Vick's first and only comments came two days after the initial search, when evidence and details were still sketchy. "I'm never at the house," he said on April 27. "I left the house with my family members and my cousin. They just haven't been doing the right thing."

How in the hell could Vick know that his family members "haven't been doing the right thing" only two days after the search happened? It was, in our view, a colossal slip by Vick, since only someone who had knowledge of what was happening there would have enough information to publicly blame his family members for it.

3. Vick has only ever said "I'm never at the house." Somehow, his contention has been mangled by the "real" media into "I'm rarely at the house."
The distinction is HUGE.

In a case like this, where there likely will be no direct evidence of Vick's presence at a dog fight, circumstantial evidence is critical. Given the size and the scope of the dog fighting operation, any credible evidence to contradict his "I'm never at the house" routine is devastating to the Sgt. Schulz defense that Mike tried to float before the lawyers crammed a sock in his throat.

4. Multiple reports later surfaced from credible media operations like SI.com and ESPN's Outside the Lines linking Vick directly to dog fighting. Chris Landry of FOX Sports Radio said that Ray Buchanan of FOX Sports Radio (and formerly of the Falcons) explained during the weekend of the draft that Vick was clearly involved in dog fighting and openly talked about it in the locker room. When confronted with the issue, Buchanan gave (in our opinion) an extremely unconvincing explanation, and it was clear to us that his sole motivation was and is to avoid snitching on a current NFL player.

5. Through all of the media reports tying him to dog fighting, Vick and his handlers have not uttered a single peep. In a court of law, silence cannot be regarded as evidence of guilt. In the court of public opinion, the notion of a truly innocent man saying nothing at all as his name and reputation are dragged through the dog doo-doo by false and fabricated media reports is downright damning.

6. Federal authorities have twice been to the property, and have removed a total of 17 dog carcasses. The fact that they got what they were looking for suggests that they have an informant who is giving them solid information. Thus, it's unlikely that many (any) of those dogs died of natural causes, but that the bodies instead are evidence that (as alleged in the federal complaint filed earlier this week) the members of the Bad Newz Kennels often killed canines that had been on the losing end of a fight.

7. In June, Vick's cousin who lived at the house, Davon Boddie, gave a bizarre interview to WAVY-TV, during which he claimed that the dogs found in April had been planted on the property by folks who snuck through the woods.

Folks, if you add all that up and apply some basic common sense, it doesn't look pretty for the guy that owned the property that housed the dog-fighting operation.

Also, there's no evidence that the feds have interviewed Vick or Boddie or anyone else who knows anything about the situation. Our guess is that the authorities are wisely and prudently and patiently getting their forensic evidence buttoned up before they start turning the screws up on the suspects.

That specific aspect of the investigation could lead to all sorts of interesting outcomes. If anyone lies to investigators, they'll be subject to the Martha Stewart/Scooter Libby treatment. If they exercises their constitutional right not to speak, they are inviting indictments, since they will have provided investigators with nothing to refute any conclusions that have been drawn regarding potential guilt.

In light of everything set forth above, and given the current status of the investigation, we firmly believe that anyone who thinks that the man: (1) who owned the property; (2) who initially claimed that he never goes there; (3) who blamed his family members for "not doing the right thing" at a time when it was too early to conclude that anyone had done anything wrong; and (4) who has since kept his mouth shut in the face of damaging evidence is not the chief suspect in and ultimate target of the ongoing investigation is naive, stupid, biased, or some combination of the three.

ProFootballTalk.com -- The Best Pro Football Scoop on the Internet

[simple simon]

Originally Posted by vincesanity82

Mike Vick likely won't be indicted by federal authorities in connection with the investigation

not yet anyway

[azrael492]

With all the hype surrounding the dog fighting, did they forget that the reason they found it was there was a drug raid on the property. What happened to that?

[vincesanity82]

Prosecutors detail dogfights at Vick's property
Court documents show participants adhered to rigorous code

The dogfights on Michael Vick's property followed very strict rules, authorities say.
Weighing in just half a pound too much or too little disqualified dogs from matches.Dogs were bathed immediately before fights to make sure their coats were not "tainted" with a drug or poison that might hinder an opponent. Sometimes they were starved to make them more vicious in the pit.
For owners and carefully screened spectators, these fights sometimes offered purses worth thousands of dollars.
For the dogs, losing could lead to a gruesome execution.
This is how federal prosecutors describe a large dogfighting operation that they say operated out of Vick's 15-acre property in Surry County, Va. They have filed no charges. And Vick, the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback and one of the highest-paid players in the National Football League, has denied any involvement in dogfighting. His lawyer did not respond Friday to a request for an interview.
Regardless, by giving such a detailed account in court documents, prosecutors are sending strong signals about their investigation's focus. They say the dogfighting organization, known as Bad Newz Kennels, violated federal law by sponsoring or otherwise taking part in fights for which animals were transported across state lines.
Federal authorities in Virginia declined to comment this week.
The documents, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond, do not name Vick or anyone else. Nor do they say how authorities learned the details of a typical fight night at Vick's property. But the specificity with which they describe the culture of dogfighting, particularly as it allegedly took place on Vick's property within a year after he purchased it in 2001, suggests that one or more informants guided investigators on two recent raids.
"They got good, solid evidence from somewhere, either an informant or a psychic," said John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States. "Someone is providing very accurate information."
Surry County officials may present the case to a local grand jury on July 24. They have sent mixed signals on whether they have enough evidence to file charges.
But federal authorities appear to be taking control of the investigation, which began when local police searched Vick's property after his cousin, who lived there, was arrested on drug charges.
On a judge's orders, U.S. marshals last week took custody of the 53 dogs that local authorities seized from Vick's property in April. Many of those dogs, court records say, had scars or injuries that appeared to come from organized fights.
Prosecutors are asking a judge to force the dogs' owners to forfeit their ownership of the animals, since they are considered the gains from illegal activity. If Vick wants to stake claim to any of the animals, he'll have to file a notice in federal court by September.
"The dogs are currently being cared for at facilities in the Eastern District of Virginia," Jim Rybicki, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Alexandria, Va., said by email Friday. "However, they remain under U.S. government custody. They will continue to be held in government custody until the court adjudicates the forfeiture action."
Along with the dogs, authorities seized performance-enhancing drugs that, court records say, were used to make dogs fight better or to help injured animals fight longer. They found equipment associated with dog fighting operations, including a "rape stand" used in forced breeding, a digital scale used to weigh dogs before fights, and a fighting pit, stained in blood.
Authorities also confiscated two handguns; court records say some dogs have been shot to death after fights.
Despite the illicit nature of the enterprise, the fights operated under a strict code, court records indicate.
The two dogs entered in each fight had to be the same gender and weight. Participants would agree on a fighting weight in advance, and each dog had to weigh within a half-pound of that mark. Any greater deviation would result in a dog being scratched from the fight; its owner might have to pay the opponent's owner to make up for the forfeited purse.
Bathing the dogs also was part of the pre-fight ritual. This prevented owners from gaining an unfair advantage for their dogs by placing poison or drugs on an animal's coat. Otherwise, when an opponent bit the dog, it might be sickened or sedated and lose the fight.
Each fight, according to court records, would "last to the end" — the point at which one dog surrendered or died.
For defeated dogs, though, surviving the fight could lead to an even worse fate.
"At the end of the fight," court documents say, "the losing dog was sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution or some other method."
Other dogs, though, died before they ever got to a formal fight. If animals belonging to Bad Newz Kennels did not test well in training, court records say, "the dogs deemed not to be good fighters would be put to death."
Authorities say seven dogs were killed for that reason and buried on the property in April.
Vick has bred and sold pitbulls and other breeds through two companies: Mike Vick K-9 Kennels and MV7 Inc. (named for his initials and his football jersey number). The companies' Web site — recently taken offline — described their animals as "family pets."
"We do not promote, support or raise dogs for fighting," the Web site said, "and will not knowingly sell, give or trade any dog that may be used for fighting."

Prosecutors detail dogfights at Vick's property | ajc.com

[bears9]

have fun in jail Micheal Vick

[Bette]

I have a really bad feeling that he is going to get out of this.

[azrael492]

Originally Posted by Bette

I have a really bad feeling that he is going to get out of this.

I thought this was over already. Didn't they say he was not going to be indicted?