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Vick pleads guilty to dogfighting charge
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Topic Started: Aug 27 2007, 10:48 AM (224 Views)
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24thcenstfan
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Aug 27 2007, 10:48 AM
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Vick pleads guilty to dogfighting charge
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RICHMOND, Va. - Michael Vick has apologized to the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons and his teammates following his guilty plea on a federal dogfighting charge. Standing erect and answering questions with soft, short responses, NFL star Michael Vick pleaded guilty Monday to a federal dogfighting charge and awaited a Dec. 10 sentencing date that could send him to prison.
The plea by the suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback was accepted by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who asked: "Are you entering the plea of guilty to a conspiracy charge because you are in fact guilty?"
Vick replied, "Yes, sir."
Hudson emphasized during the 15-minute hearing he is not bound by sentencing guidelines or the recommendations of prosecutors and can impose the maximum sentence of up to five years in prison. Prosecutors proposed a 12- to 18-month prison term.
"You're taking your chances here. You'll have to live with whatever decision I make," Hudson.
Vick's lead attorney, Billy Martin, said his client would discuss his plea at a news conference.
"A first-time offender might well receive no jail time for this offense," U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said in a statement. "We thought, however, that the conduct in this conspiracy was heinous, cruel and inhumane" so three of the four defendants, including Vick, should receive harsher sentences.
The first defendant to plead guilty left the conspiracy in 2004 and is not as culpable, he said.
In his written plea filed in federal court Friday, Vick admitted helping kill six to eight pit bulls and supplying money for gambling on the fights. He said he did not personally place any bets or share in any winnings.
The NFL suspended him indefinitely and without pay Friday after his plea agreement was filed. Merely associating with gamblers can trigger a lifetime ban under the league's personal conduct policy.
The case began in late April when authorities conducting a drug investigation of Vick's cousin raided the former Virginia Tech star's rural Surry County property and seized dozens of dogs, some injured, and equipment commonly used in dogfighting.
A federal indictment issued in July charged Vick, Purnell Peace of Virginia Beach, Quanis Phillips of Atlanta and Tony Taylor of Hampton 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; Phillips and Peace soon followed.
The details outlined in the indictment and other court papers fueled a public backlash against Vick and cost him several lucrative endorsement deals, even before he agreed to plead guilty.
In announcing the suspension, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell opened the way for the Falcons to attempt to recover $22 million of Vick's signing bonus from the 10-year, $130 million contract he signed in 2004.
Vick's plea Monday came hours before the Falcons play an exhibition game at home against the Cincinnati Bengals. This will be the first chance for the team to see what effect Vick's case has on attendance at the Georgia Dome. Vick wears the biggest-selling jersey in team history and is given much credit for the team's 51 consecutive sellouts.
After initially denying his involvement, Vick has said little publicly about the case. Privately, he met with Goodell and Falcons owner Arthur Blank when the investigation was just beginning, and almost certainly lied to both.
This guy is scum and I hope he is sentenced to the maximum five years allowable.
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ImpulseEngine
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Aug 27 2007, 11:22 AM
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Commodore
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^ I agree. And I'm surprised at the guilty plea. Unfortunately, he'll probably be back playing pro football again eventually.
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24thcenstfan
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Aug 27 2007, 03:43 PM
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The guilty plea came only because he was offered a deal (I believe).
I don't buy this, "I made a mistake" garbage either. This was something he did maliciously, put a lot of forethought into this "business" and would have probably continued to dogfight if he hadn't been caught.
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Mel
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Aug 27 2007, 03:50 PM
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Of course he would have continued.
What scum! :angry: And I love how some football fans are getting their panties up in a bunch because Vick won't be able to play this season...
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24thcenstfan
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Aug 27 2007, 04:31 PM
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- Mel
- Aug 27 2007, 04:50 PM
Of course he would have continued. What scum! :angry: And I love how some football fans are getting their panties up in a bunch because Vick won't be able to play this season...
I'm not going to generalize, but I will say that it does go to show that some football fans are nuts.
Its amazing how some sports fans are willing to look past this kind of horrendous behavior as long as the person who committed the behavior has some great athletic ability. As though these people are gods or something.
We aren't talking about a simply mistake or error in judgment here. We all make those.
This dogfighting is just sick.
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TribbleMom
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Aug 27 2007, 09:09 PM
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I heard on the news this evening that he may be banned from football for life, much like Pete Rose was banned from baseball. I hope that isn't the worst of the punishment. Cruelty to animals can carry some pretty weighty sentences as well. Being a public figure whom kids may look up to, I think it's important to set an example to the more impressionable youth that animal cruelty is not acceptable.
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Mel
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Aug 27 2007, 09:15 PM
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- TribbleMom
- Aug 27 2007, 11:09 PM
I heard on the news this evening that he may be banned from football for life, much like Pete Rose was banned from baseball. I hope that isn't the worst of the punishment. Cruelty to animals can carry some pretty weighty sentences as well. Being a public figure whom kids may look up to, I think it's important to set an example to the more impressionable youth that animal cruelty is not acceptable.
I seriously hope he does get banned for life.
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ImpulseEngine
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Aug 28 2007, 08:18 AM
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Commodore
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Source
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Grrr! Vick Finds Jesus in Record Time
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
By Mike Straka
"We all make mistakes," said Michael Vick. "Dogfighting is a terrible thing and I reject it ... I found Jesus and turned my life over to God. I think that's the right thing to do as of right now."
Gee, that didn't take long.
I didn't think the curtain on the "finding Jesus" act would rise until after Vick went to jail, but alas, it came on the same day he made his plea deal official.
It took Paris Hilton a few hours in the slammer before she met Jesus, and Vick does it even before lockup. Who knew?
He must have hired Hilton rep Elliot Mintz as his spokesman over the weekend.
Let's face it. Vick loves dogfighting. He loves the rush it gives him to see dogs that he helped to train maul and kill other dogs. Even his own father and grandfather say as much — although their witness to Vick's character is about as solid as Vick's future in football.
When ConVick's dogs didn't perform well, he killed them in a "collective" effort that amounted to electrocution and drowning, and when electricity or water were too much to ask for, he and his cohorts "collectively" body-slammed man's-best-friend to death.
"I made a mistake in using poor judgment and making bad decisions," he said.
Poor judgment? Keyshawn Johnson used poor judgment by writing a book in which he espoused on his greatness on the field. That's poor judgment, especially after you start dropping passes.
Bad decisions? Terrell Owens stuffing a Sharpie in his pants and autographing a football during a game is a bad decision.
What Vick did is called breaking the law. Committing a crime. Intentionally killing a living creature.
For that, prosecutors recommend 12 to 18 months.
That's half the time Andrew Burnett got for grabbing a little bichon frise named Leo off its owner's lap and throwing the dog into oncoming traffic after a road rage incident seven years ago.
At least Burnett had the "road rage" defense. Vick's involvement in killing dogs had nothing to do with emotions. That decision was made in order to cut losses. Why pay to feed and house dogs that don't perform well?
He said we all make mistakes, but ask him to be honest, and he might tell you the only mistake he made was that he associated with the wrong types of people, and in the end, that's what got him caught.
Don't forget, if Vick's cousin hadn't been involved with drugs, the dogfighting operation would never have been discovered while investigating Vick's Virginia property.
And if you look back to Vick's initial statements, about associating with the wrong types of people, he was clearly aiming to let those people take the fall for him.
It's kind of like Lindsay Lohan eyeballing the owner of the SUV she allegedly hijacked a few weeks ago while saying to cops, "I wasn't driving, officer. Go on guys, tell him I wasn't driving."
"I'm going to have a lot of downtime," Vick said before walking off the podium. You can say that again, Michael.
Things That Make Me Go Grrr!
The other day I read a story in one of the papers of record about two athletes who were raking in endorsement deals to the tune of over $1 million a year.
They are volleyball players who happen to be a couple. And while I applaud them for their athletic prowess and believe that they deserve to rake in whatever the market will bear for their services as spokespeople, I began to wonder what made them so attractive to sponsors.
Was it their success on the beach? Well, yes. But it goes deeper than that. Put simply, they attract an audience. A very desirable audience. In the business they call it the "demo," that much coveted 18-to-34 age group. This group presumably makes all of their long-term buying decisions during this time of their lives, when brand loyalty is akin to friendship.
But why do advertisers constantly choose athletes for these deals? Or pop stars? How many athletes (Michael Vick — duh) end up burning their endorsement sponsors with bad behavior?
How about Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears?
What will happen when everybody who is endorsing a product crashes and burns in some way, shape or form?
And, is there anybody out there bulletproof? We know athletes, actors and singers — all attractive to sponsors — are not.
How about bloggers? They have broad reach, but half of these people we never really "meet," or even know what they look like, so there's too much mystery surrounding them.
Maybe we should begin seeing commercials from Cirque du Soleil performers. First, the troupe is visually stunning. Second, it is family-friendly. Third, there is no one person who stands out in any performance, hence zero ego. And fourth, they make up their own language, so even if they did do anything stupid, we wouldn't know it.
But most of all, with 50 or more performers per commercial, nobody is getting stupid rich, which will probably alleviate most of the stupid things that stupid rich people do, more and more often these days. Vick found Jesus? All I can say is
Well, that and :angry:
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24thcenstfan
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Aug 28 2007, 09:58 AM
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That might be a record for finding Jesus. 
The "man" is a lying piece of filth.
I heard that Nike has already dropped him as a sponser. Haven't confirmed that though. I hope all of his sponsers drop him like a ton of bricks.
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ImpulseEngine
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Aug 28 2007, 10:09 AM
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Commodore
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- 24thcenstfan
- Aug 28 2007, 10:58 AM
I heard that Nike has already dropped him as a sponser. Haven't confirmed that though. I hope all of his sponsers drop him like a ton of bricks.
Agreed. Except Jesus of course.
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Mel
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Aug 28 2007, 04:32 PM
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What a pathetic attempt!! :angry:
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24thcenstfan
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Aug 28 2007, 06:07 PM
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^^
Pathetic indeed.
IE,
Except for Jesus of course.
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ImpulseEngine
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Aug 29 2007, 08:17 AM
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Sirus Ramsey
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Aug 30 2007, 02:45 AM
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At the risk of alienating myself on another Star Trek website, I think I'm going to have to be the devil's advocate here. I don't thing dogfighting is a good thing or anything like that, but in our culture, there are multimillion dollar industries based on other brutal sports involving people such as one that features a couple guys beating each other in the head until one of them can't get up anymore. Or we sit mesmerized watching people eating bugs or animal genetalia and trying not to vomit, or other unspeakable horrors marketed as "reality" TV. I don't think what this guy did was right, but I think there are plenty of disgusting and brutal things that people accept as normal forms of entertainment as well.
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24thcenstfan
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Aug 30 2007, 06:39 AM
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- Sirus Ramsey
- Aug 30 2007, 03:45 AM
At the risk of alienating myself on another Star Trek website, I think I'm going to have to be the devil's advocate here.
Sirus, you aren't going to be alienated from here just for offering a counter opinion. I have never liked that kind of spiteful cliquish behavior. I've been on the receiving end and it is no fun. Feel free to speak your mind as long as it doesn't violotate the Board Guidelines/ToU (and all of that official jazz ).
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I don't thing dogfighting is a good thing or anything like that, but in our culture, there are multimillion dollar industries based on other brutal sports involving people such as one that features a couple guys beating each other in the head until one of them can't get up anymore. Or we sit mesmerized watching people eating bugs or animal genetalia and trying not to vomit, or other unspeakable horrors marketed as "reality" TV. I don't think what this guy did was right, but I think there are plenty of disgusting and brutal things that people accept as normal forms of entertainment as well.
That is true (re: bold added). However the participants in the type of sporting events you mention have a choice in the matter. The dogs did not. They were bred, starved, abused and forced to fight one another.
Freedom of choice is the key here and is a major factor in how I personally view an act. Dogfighting is on an entirely different level of violence than say boxing for example. Then you have those no holds bar type fighting in caged rings that are much more violent. I don’t support or watch that kind of thing. But if two guys choose to get into the ring to fight in that manner, at least they made the choice of their own volition. And while some of the behavior (eating habits) exhibited by some reality TV contestants is gross, again it is IMO nothing compared to the level of violence exhibited in dogfighting.
I think in any society there will be degrees of acceptable violence. Thankfully our society as a whole still does draw the line somewhere.
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ImpulseEngine
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Aug 30 2007, 09:55 AM
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Commodore
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Freedom of choice does make all the difference and it's exactly what I was thinking as well as I read Sirus' reply. (And, Sirus, don't worry you haven't alienated me - the world would be awfully boring without diverse opinions.) Also, the loser dogs were all killed - and rather brutally too - which is another significant difference.
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