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CONVICTED: Was justice served?
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Case #15814 Rating: 2.7 out of 5
Wednesday, Sep 23, 2009
County: Cook
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Convicted
Defendants/Suspects:
» Charles Sutton
» Lance Webb
» Martez Anderson
Case Updates: 3 update(s) available
Four people have been arrested in Maywood for running an alleged dog fighting ring that happened to be in the same home as a day care. Officers raided the day care and two nearby homes earlier today in order to rescue the dogs involved. At the Animal Welfare League in suburban Chicago Ridge, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said, “The dogs were in horrific condition. This is as bad as we’ve seen.” Several of the dogs have undergone surgery since being removed.
Authorities described battered and malnourished dogs, and noted the devices used to train them were not far from where the day care’s children played. One of the nine rescued dogs was an 8-week-old puppy that was missing an eye and had scratches on its face from being thrown into fights.
The scene in the garage was gruesome with blood spatter and items such as bite sticks and a treadmill that had been fixed to be used to train dogs. A 1996 edition of Sporting Dog Journal was also discovered.
Felony dog fighting charges are pending against the people arrested, including the day care operator’s husband. Ten children were in the day care at the time of the raid but were not in the vicinity of the dogs. Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, said the day care had been licensed since March 2004 for a capacity of seven children and has been under investigation. Two complaints were received a few years ago about dogs, but DCFS officials made unannounced visits and the dogs were never found near the children.
The day care is now closed and it will be monitored in the future to be sure it does not reopen. Linda Estrada, president of the Animal Welfare League, said the dogs were being evaluated and will eventually go up for adoption.
Case Updates
The third defendant charged in connection with a dog fighting ring based at a daycare pleaded guilty Wednesday and was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Charles Sutton, 42, of Maywood, pleaded guilty to felony dog fighting, according to a release from the Cook County Sheriff's office.
The other two defendants in the case, cousins Martez Anderson and Lance Webb of Maywood, entered guilty pleas in December. Anderson, 38, was sentenced to two years and Webb, 27, received 18 months.
Last September, the sheriff's police Animal Crimes Unit arrested the three after an investigation found they were running a dog fighting ring from their west suburban homes.
Sutton's wife was also operating a daycare in one of the homes where dogs were found. She was not charged with a crime, but her daycare license was revoked by the state.
Nine severely injured dogs were rescued from these residences and turned over to the Animal Welfare League in Chicago Ridge.
At the time of the arrest, Sheriff Tom Dart said conditions at the Maywood homes were among the most gruesome his officers had ever come across, made even more harrowing by the presence of the daycare operation.
One "very aggressive" dog was removed from a detached garage behind the daycare, where about 10 children were being cared for when officers arrived to seize the badly injured animal. |
Source: WBBM - Jan 13, 2010
Update posted on Jan 18, 2010 - 10:00PM |
A Maywood man charged Thursday with dogfighting had a video on his cell phone of an animal being burned to death, Cook County sheriff's police said.
Martez Anderson, 38, was arrested when he showed up at a bond hearing for two other Maywood men allegedly involved in a dogfighting ring, police said.
Anderson had been charged Tuesday with being a felon in possession of an unneutered or unspayed dog, a misdemeanor, following a raid in Maywood by sheriff's police during which nine dogs were recovered. He was released from custody later Tuesday but was arrested again Thursday at the Cook County courthouse in Maywood after police reviewed evidence in the case. He then was charged with felony dogfighting, police said.
Once in custody Thursday, sheriff's police reviewed his cell phone and found a video showing a man burning an animal to death, sheriff's police said.
Bail was set at $500,000 for Anderson and for Charles Sutton, 42, and Lance Webb, 27, all of Maywood, who were arrested Tuesday and charged with felony dogfighting.
Sheriff's officers raided Sutton's home in the 2100 block of South Third Avenue on Tuesday and found a fighting dog and dogfighting equipment, including bite sticks used to pry dogs' jaws apart, Assistant State's Attorney Paul Fangman said in court Thursday.
Sutton's wife operated a day-care facility out of their house when the dogfighting evidence was found in a blood-stained garage near a swingset, sheriff's police said.
The woman told police that children were never near dogs or dogfighting equipment, but the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has since shut down the day-care facility.
Sheriff's police said Sutton was the target of the investigation and that his home was the base of the dogfighting ring. |
Source: Chicago Tribune - Sept 25, 2009
Update posted on Sep 28, 2009 - 10:46AM |
Bond has been set at $500,000 each for three men accused of running a dogfighting ring out of a suburban Chicago home that also served as a day care center.
All three men from west suburban Maywood are charged with felony dogfighting. They're being held at the Cook County Jail.
Prosecutors had initially charged 38-year-old Martez Anderson with possessing an unspayed or unneutered dog, a misdemeanor. The felony charge was added Thursday.
The other two men, 42-year-old Charles Sutton and 27-year-old Lance Webb, were arrested Wednesday after a raid on Sutton's home.
Sutton's wife ran a day care center out of their home. It's been closed by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. |
Source: Chicago Tribune - Sep 24, 2009
Update posted on Sep 24, 2009 - 6:51PM |
References
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