WASHINGTON — More than a dozen dogs seized during FBI raids in the D.C. area last month are allegedly related to a regionwide dogfighting ring.
Court documents filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia request that federal authorities be allowed to keep the dogs. They also state that items related to dog breeding, fighting and training were recovered Aug. 24 from homes on Saint Clair Drive in Temple Hills, Maryland, and on Brother’s Place Southeast in D.C.
On Aug. 24, 12 people were arrested and charged with identity theft, credit card and bank fraud. One of the suspects, Rodriguez Rodney Lomax Norman, lived in one of the raided homes and is named in the court documents as running the dog ring.
Items seized from Noman’s home, according to the court documents, include a dog treadmill, collars and vests weighted with sand bags, a noose contraption apparently used to dangle dogs by their necks to build muscle, a blood-splattered fighting ring, an IV-fluid kit and drugs allegedly used to keep injured dogs fighting longer.
One of the dogfights mentioned in the documents as occurring in or about November 2016 lasted one hour and 12 minutes.
The documents also detail dogfighting associates living in Woodbridge, Virginia, and New Jersey as well as a so-called “DMV Board” believed to arrange and coordinate dogfighting in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
