I heard on the radio testimony exists clearing him of any wrongdoing.

In the meantime, he's playing football and still gettin paid

Quote :

"And in a scene straight out of the Longest Yard, Blank says Vick is playing football at Leavenworth. That's one way to pass his time and keep his arm loose. He's likely the first player picked when the inmates are choosing up sides or the guards are choosing up sides for them. Vick's sprinter speed surely comes in handy just in case a dog-loving inmate thinks it's cool to sack an NFL quarterback and break his shoulder. "He is staying in shape,” Blank told The News. "Apparently, there was a prison football team and he played qu"

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2008/04/05/2008-04-05_michael_vick_playing_prison_football.html

4/8/2008 2:36:01 PM

the prison has claimed this to be false already.

4/8/2008 2:42:11 PM

see, lies like the one you just made reinforce the calls that there is an international conspiracy in the media to bring down vick

4/8/2008 2:46:16 PM

someone whom he had given money to in his family did this shit, and since it was in his name, he paid the dues

4/8/2008 2:48:01 PM

Its like the opposite of what you usually happen

VICK IS A FAMILY MAN

he took the heat for his people, instead of how the story usually goes of a celebrity having someone else take the fall for him

4/8/2008 2:50:46 PM

also i think vick knew about it and didnt wanna rat on his family

im not a vick fan at all, i really believe hed have no reason to bet on dogfighting when hes making millions.

[Edited on April 8, 2008 at 2:58 PM. Reason : .]

4/8/2008 2:57:56 PM

4/8/2008 3:00:10 PM

23 months in prison for fucking dogfighting

Jesus Christ

4/8/2008 3:02:07 PM

terball's google alert for "Black Athlete" must have gone off

4/8/2008 3:03:45 PM

I didn't even start this thread, you fucking faggot

4/8/2008 3:07:45 PM

23 months for his ASSOCIATES doing some dogfighting


THEY WOULD PROSECUTE AND COME DOWN ON PEYTON MANNING THIS HARD RIGHT??

4/8/2008 3:08:50 PM

I was working under the assumption that terpball actually knew what a google alert is. Apparently I was wrong and I'm a fucking faggot.

4/8/2008 3:10:01 PM

I do know what a google alert is, and you know you're gay

4/8/2008 3:11:48 PM

Is that seriously the best you can do? Gay? Faggot?

4/8/2008 3:12:47 PM

Oh, and IBTBS

4/8/2008 3:16:10 PM

Quote :

"Is that seriously the best you can do"

Best I can do? What do you think I'm trying to accomplish - other than getting you off my dick?

4/8/2008 3:18:43 PM

This thread will soon meet the fate of one Michael Vick.

Locked up for good reason.

4/8/2008 3:19:44 PM

Damn don't let killer Rae and Vick together on the same prison team.

FREE MIKE VICK
FREE RAE CARRUTH

4/8/2008 5:50:04 PM

rabble rabble rabble

4/8/2008 5:57:07 PM

I'm curious to hear Terpball's opinion about OJ Simpson's guilt or innocence.

4/8/2008 6:15:35 PM

vick is overrated and rather pathetic

4/10/2008 3:07:15 PM

Quote :

"FREE MIKE VICK "

no

4/10/2008 5:11:26 PM

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

4/10/2008 5:44:48 PM

Quote :

"I'm curious to hear Terpball's opinion about OJ Simpson's guilt or innocence. "

Nicole Simpson can't rap...I want justice!!!!

4/10/2008 5:59:01 PM

probably one of the funniest things ever said on tv

for serious

4/10/2008 6:32:08 PM

Followed closely by...

"- Some people think a cucumber tasted better pickled!

- What?

- Huh?

- Huh?

- What?"

4/10/2008 6:37:47 PM

You know why you're gay? Because you don't know what a google alert is.


But on topic, the prison has said he just throws around a football with a few guys. The football season is over.

4/10/2008 8:08:44 PM

This troll is MacGyver, mystery solved thanks to this thread

4/10/2008 10:27:44 PM

http://styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=17236

The Road to Defeat

The untold story of the Surry County dogfighting ring that took down Michael Vick.
by Joe Jackson

Michael Vick’s journey to federal prison began when he was 18 years old.

At 10:45 a.m. on March 2, 1999, a blue Ford Econoline van with Virginia plates and a dangling pine-tree air freshener got stopped for speeding one mile north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, going 65 in a 55 mph zone. The driver, Jose Rivera — who listed his occupation as dog breeder — was headed home to Surry County, he said. He grew nervous while Officer Mark Wendel asked questions, squirming in his seat, wiping his palms on his trousers.

When Wendel asked to search the van, Rivera stuttered, “S-s-sure,” records show. In the back, behind a built-in TV set, Wendel and other officers found two kilos of cocaine, worth $240,000 on the street, and a half kilo of heroin, worth $120,000.

Vick had no connection with this bust, nor with the three men in the van. He was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. The bust received little mention in the press, just another footnote in the New York-to-Tidewater drug flow.

Yet the stop would have everything to do with the fate of the young star.

It is a long road from New York City to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Rivera, and his companions who were not charged, had been driving on Route 13 since 4 a.m. A driver stares down the highway: The white line flashes up, accompanied by the asphalt’s whine. It’s easy to grow hypnotized, to let the speed creep up, to miss the watcher hidden beside the road.

On March 2, 1999, Vick had the whole world before him. His talent on the high-school gridiron had catapulted him from the crime-ridden projects of Newport News’ East End, known in hip-hop culture as Bad Newz, to a scholarship at Virginia Tech. In his first game he scored three touchdowns in a little more than a quarter of play. The last TD ended in a flip, showmanship that injured his ankle and forced him out for the rest of the game. But in 2000, he’d propel the Hokies to the Sugar Bowl and finish third in Heisman Trophy balloting.

He was two years away from signing as a quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons in the 2001 draft, five years away from becoming the first player in National Football League history to rush 100 yards and pass for 250 yards in a single game. That same year, in 2004, he would sign a 10-year contract with the Falcons for $130 million, making him the highest-paid NFL player at the time.

He could not know that this bust would become the first in a series of incidents that would ultimately bring him down. No one foresaw that papers in the van would draw attention to a Surry dog breeder named Benjamin D. Butts; that one day Vick would hire Butts to train pit bulls for fights to the death; that along with his equipment and expertise, Butts would bring unwanted police attention to Vick’s Surry County mansion.

The April 2007 search of Vick’s property would result in his 23-month sentence in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., for involvement in an interstate dogfighting ring called Bad Newz Kennels and his loss of millions in canceled contracts, defaulted loans, and court-ordered payments and fines. The charges resulted in the firing of a respected narcotics officer and a flood of accusations alleging favoritism toward Vick by the county prosecutor and sheriff. Racism roiled this rural county. Reporters descended like flies; neighbor turned against neighbor. Butts would miss the excitement. By then, he was dead.

No one foresaw any of this. Route 13 is long, and drivers get careless. The voyage from poverty to millions passes fast, and one grows cocky. Blood sports are held at night, when the path is dark.

6/25/2008 1:24:04 PM

One rarely sees so far.



One recurring pattern in Benny Butts’ life was his injudicious choice of friends. In 1999, Jose Rivera proved this true. Police found in the van insurance forms, a driver’s license and other paperwork citing Rivera’s address as either 800 Conway St. in Williamsburg or 831 Brownsview Lane in Surry County. The latter was the rural home of Butts and his family.

When Rivera was arrested, he said he’d lived in Williamsburg in 1997-98 with a man named Oscar Allen, then moved to Butts’ home for five months in 1998-99. His only means of income was breeding and selling pit bulls, kept on Butts’ property. The two men with him — Terrance Smith, 39, and Leudis Mendoza, 23 — said they’d come on this trip to check Rivera’s dogs as breeding stock. They’d met him through the “fighting dog community,” they said.

In 1999, police were only beginning to understand the links between dogfighting, violence and illegal drugs. Merritt Clifton, of the animal-protection newspaper Animal People, said in the Oct. 2, 2002, New York Times that “dogfighting hit the crossover point in 1998,” the year that nearly every dogfighting statistic — people involved, dogs seized, drug or homicide arrests related — began to double and triple. It’s a trend that, with few exceptions, has continued.

The Humane Society of the United States estimates that nationwide, 40,000 people and at least 250,000 pit bulls are involved in dogfighting. Another 100,000 street fighters — teenagers and young men who arrange dogfights in their neighborhoods but are not part of the professional circuit — are also involved. The Humane Society estimates that worldwide profits from puppy sales, stud fees and wagers soar into the hundreds of millions. Today dogfighting is illegal in all 50 states, and a federal law, enacted in May 2007, includes provisions against transporting dogs intended for fights across state lines.

At first, Rivera said he knew nothing about the drugs in his van. He was delivering the Ford van to the real owner, a New Yorker he knew as Lucho, he said. As the investigation continued, a different story emerged. An informant told federal agents that, beginning in 1994, the informant bought a kilo of cocaine for $22,000 to $25,000 every two or three weeks from Rivera, Butts and Miguel Antonio Tavera, who sometimes stayed at Butts’ home. All three were dogfighters, and Butts would deliver the cocaine in bags of dog food, the informant alleged.

As Rivera’s court date approached, he changed his story. On Oct. 5, 1999, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Norfolk to felony cocaine and heroin possession, with intent to distribute. His sentencing was scheduled for March 2000, pending his cooperation with the law. On March 9, 2000, he told agents that he and Leudis Mendoza were actually partners, but that Terrance Smith knew nothing about the drugs. They’d been running narcotics to Tidewater for several years, and had increased their deliveries to once every two or three weeks. They’d take the drugs to Chesapeake, stay at a motel near Chesapeake Square Mall or with Butts in Surry County. They’d return $60,000 or $70,000 to their New York source every run.

Four days later, on March 13, Rivera was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, plus four years of supervised probation. He was released Sept. 3, 2004, federal records show.

In February 2000, the informant had called Butts and asked to buy drugs. But Benny was being careful. He said he felt paranoid and dared not deal. “I don’t feel like being in no conspiracy, you know what I mean?” he said. On March 15, two days after Rivera’s sentencing, Butts told the informant that federal agents had come to his house after Rivera’s arrest. He told them that, although Mendoza and Smith were guests, he knew nothing about drugs. “I played real stupid,” he said.

Before Rivera’s arrest, Butts was a minor blip on Surry County’s criminal radar. Born in the Buckroe section of Newport News in 1964, he’d been found guilty in Hampton Circuit Court in August 1985 of one felony count of marijuana possession. In September 1990, he and his wife bought 5.7 acres on Brownsview Lane for $63,318. In 1994 and 1995, he worked at Carroll’s Farms in neighboring Sussex County, but resigned after a history of attendance problems. In 1995 and 1997, he was slapped with misdemeanor marijuana possession and assault charges in Surry County, but both charges were dismissed.

6/25/2008 1:24:58 PM

there is more to the story...thats just about 1/2 the article
click the link if you care to read the rest

6/25/2008 1:25:57 PM

Quote :

"thats just about 1/2 the article"

thats only like 1/8 of the article, holy shit that thing is long!

6/25/2008 1:30:28 PM

really good article

6/25/2008 1:46:38 PM

Quote :

""FREE MIKE VICK ""

How bout no scott.

Maybe he blows a knee in prision... if that is all he... ok.. ill stop.

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 2:06 PM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 2:06:35 PM

Quote :

"When Wendel asked to search the van, Rivera stuttered, “S-s-sure,” records show. In the back, behind a built-in TV set, Wendel and other officers found two kilos of cocaine, worth $240,000 on the street, and a half kilo of heroin, worth $120,000."

gg

6/25/2008 2:12:34 PM

Quote :

"23 months in prison for fucking dogfighting Jesus Christ"

I know. Punish him for sure, but in the grand scheme, dogfighting ranks right at about the bottom in importance. Community service...lots of it...would be more appropriate.

6/27/2008 1:14:12 PM

community service for the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars that were gambled and that taxes were not paid on?

i thought we all realized months ago when the conVICKtion happened that the majority of the time was due to gambling and tax stuff and not the physical act of dog fighting

6/27/2008 1:19:30 PM

Oh. I didn't know that. Didn't follow the issue very much.

6/27/2008 1:26:45 PM

I still fail to see how his money making ability outside of prison couldn't benefit the US greater than the US paying for him to sit in jail.

But what do I know? I eat the heads off dead fish

6/27/2008 1:30:54 PM

Quote :

"I still fail to see how his money making ability outside of prison couldn't benefit the US greater than the US paying for him to sit in jail."

intersting point...i would respond that a lot of people fail to see how someone who got paid tens of millions of dollars to play football, which all of us would kill to do, would take it for granted so much that he couldnt abstain from running a dogfighting ring and throwing away that opportunity

6/27/2008 4:10:07 PM

John Maynard Keynes just told me that $10 million is still in circulation and benefitting the economy.

^ and it seems he wasn't some dog-fighting kingpin - more that he let that crap go on under his nose. he took it too lightly. a lot of accomplished alpha males have that stealth hubris come back to bite them.

6/27/2008 4:15:57 PM

i dont think he was the most hands-on member of the organization, but all the stuff i remember reading back when this happened indicated Vick was the #1 money man of the organization and basically the CEO

6/27/2008 4:21:20 PM

they said, in the article, that Vick was a gamer in the highest level of grand champion fights and bank rolled the whole operations

6/27/2008 4:58:52 PM

Quote :

"I still fail to see how his money making ability outside of prison couldn't benefit the US greater than the US paying for him to sit in jail."

I think you're mixing up "benefiting" with "profiting."

Here are the theories of punishment:

Incapacitation: He's in jail, so therefore he can't dogfight. If he's on probation or just doing community service, he still has the opportunity to dogfight.

Specific Deterrence: If he were just to get some slap on the wrist and a shitload of community hours, there's no telling if he might go back to dogfighting again seeing that the penalty is so light. I doubt he even looks at a pit bull again after spending 23 months in prison.

General Deterrence: Deters others in public from continuing to dogfight or stops some people who are dogfighting from dogfighting more because they see the punishment Vick got and don't want to receive the same kind of punishment. Basically, "setting an example." It seems some people (terpball in particular) don't agree with this reasoning and are basically citing racial reasons for it.

Retribution: People who fuck up have to suffer the consequences. Vick has taken advantage of the law, he's killed a lot of dogs in cruel ways...so he has to be punished and put at a disadvantage by the law. This is the most common theory people use for punishment.

Rehabilitation: self-explanatory.

Restitution: I think this is what you're getting at. While I understand the theory, I pretty much think its the least important out of all of the other reasons for punishment. Hey, if they can help us out as part of their punishment, then that's great. But don't reduce their punishment just so they can help out the economy or families of the victims.

6/27/2008 6:30:22 PM

FREE HAT!

6/27/2008 6:57:02 PM