Montgomery, Alabama, Aug. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Animal Wellness Action (AWA) and the Animal Wellness Foundation (AWF) urged the federal courtroom contemplating the United States’ legal case in opposition to Brent Easterling, William Easterling, and 5 different relations based mostly in Verbena, Ala. to mete out jail time and six-figure fines on the perpetrators. Last 12 months the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and prosecutors from the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice charged the Easterlings with conspiracy to violate federal anti-animal combating legal guidelines, together with working combating pits on their properties, possessing hundreds of combating animals, transporting these animals throughout the globe for combating, and trafficking in cockfighting implements (Federal Case 2:21-cr-00455-MHT-SMD).
The United States filed extra papers that included plea agreements from the Easterlings, admitting their involvement in a variety of unlawful animal combating actions. Now the federal choose presiding within the case will render a sentence within the proceedings. USDA’s Office of Inspector General and Homeland Security Investigations performed intensive investigations on the Easterlings prior to the submitting of federal expenses in opposition to them. A sentencing listening to for these three defendants will happen on September 29th, and for the remaining 4 defendants, together with Brent Easterling, on November 8th.
In early June 2020, Animal Wellness Action and AWF launched an in depth report figuring out Brent Easterling as a serious trafficker in combating animals and implements. The teams offered intensive proof to the United States about his involvement and shared a file on him with the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and with different federal legislation enforcement officers. Animal Wellness Action famous that the Easterlings made a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars}, maybe hundreds of thousands, on the illicit sale of combating birds. Brent Easterling incessantly transported his birds to Mexico, which is a serious vacation spot for U.S.-reared combating animals and took part in combating derbies all around the world, as a way of then advertising and marketing the birds he raised and skilled to be lower up in fights.
“It is critical that the federal court impose substantial prison time and fines on the Easterlings for their central role in a complex, demonstrably illegal, multimillion-dollar animal fighting syndicate that stretched across the globe,” stated Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “The other big cockfighting networks in the U.S. are watching and hoping that they won’t be next if the federal government punishes them in a way that is aligned with the strict penalties provided for in the law.”
“The rule of law matters, including when it applies to animal cruelty,” stated Marty Irby, government director of Animal Wellness Action and a local Alabamian from Mobile. “Given the Yellowhammer State’s anti-cockfighting law warrants less in the way of penalties than a parking ticket, it’s vital that the federal government step in and deliver justice. The action of the U.S. Dept. of Justice in saying that it will not tolerate animal fighting operations will reverberate from the shores of Orange Beach to Lookout Mountain and everywhere in between.”
Indeed, while the Easterlings were one of America’s biggest cockfighting syndicates, they are part of a far larger network of animal fighters in Alabama and throughout the United States that have made America the breeding ground for the global cockfighting industry. While some are destined for fighting pits in the U.S., hundreds of thousands of birds move from cockfighting farms here to dozens of nations throughout the world. AWA’s June 2020 reported on several Alabamians, including Jerry Adkins of Slick Lizard Farms, who told a Filipino television broadcaster that he sells 6,000 birds a year to Mexico alone. With some birds fetching as much as $2000 each, those illegal transactions could generate millions in gross sales.
AWA obtained a video of Brent Easterling interviewing with a Philippines-based cockfighting channel BNTV talking about his fighting birds and marketing them to worldwide audiences. AWA also obtained BNTV videos where 10 other cockfighters in Alabama extolling the prowess of their fighting birds. BNTV made 50 videos with U.S.-based cockfighters in recent years, and 11 of them came from Alabama-based cockfighters.
Under current federal law, it is a crime to:
· Knowingly sponsor or exhibit an animal in a fighting venture;
· Knowingly attend an animal fighting venture, or knowingly cause an individual who has not attained the age of 16 to attend an animal fighting venture;
· Knowingly buy, sell, possess, train, transport, deliver, or receive any animal for purposes of having the animal participate in an animal fighting venture;
· Knowingly use the mail service of the U.S. Postal Service, or any “written, wire, radio televisions or other form of communications in, or using a facility of, interstate commerce,” to promote an animal to be used in an animal combating enterprise, or to promote a knife, gaff, or different sharp instrument designed to be connected to the leg of a fowl for us in an animal combating enterprise, or to promote or in another method additional an animal combating enterprise besides as carried out outdoors the U.S.;
· Knowingly promote, purchase, transport, or ship in interstate or overseas commerce “a knife, gaff, or any other sharp instrument” designed or supposed to be connected to the leg of a fowl for us in an animal combating enterprise.
Penalties for every violation of any one in all these provisions permits for a most of 5 years in jail and a $250,000 tremendous for perpetrators, apart from an grownup attending an animal combating enterprise. Penalties for an grownup in attendance are 1 12 months in jail and a $5,000 tremendous.
Animal Wellness Action is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) group with a mission of serving to animals by selling authorized requirements forbidding cruelty. We champion causes that alleviate the struggling of companion animals, livestock, and wildlife. We advocate for insurance policies to cease dogfighting and cockfighting and different types of malicious cruelty and to confront manufacturing facility farming and different systemic types of animal exploitation. To stop cruelty, we promote enacting good public insurance policies, and we work to implement these insurance policies. To enact good legal guidelines, we should elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our points and which of them don’t. We consider serving to animals helps us all.
- Cockfighting Shutterstock Photo ID: 463482179
- U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Marty Irby
