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NFL's Vick agrees plea deal in dog-fighting case

By Andy Sullivan 51 minutes ago

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick agreed on Monday to plead guilty in a dog-fighting case that could wreck the U.S. star's football career.

His attorney, Thomas Shuttleworth, told Reuters that Vick, 27, reached a deal with prosecutors and will plead guilty in the case that has attracted worldwide attention.

Vick could go to jail. Had he not cut a deal, the multimillionaire player was likely to face a new indictment with more charges, legal sources have said.

The National Football League Web site said Vick, one of the league's highest-paid players, would appear in court on August 27.

His indictment by a federal grand jury on July 17 badly damaged the reputation of one of the NFL's best-known players. The NFL, whose season begins next month, suspended the three-time Pro Bowl selection after the indictment.

Vick, the top pick in the 2001 NFL draft out of Virginia Tech, faced up to six years in prison and $350,000 in fines if convicted on all of the initial charges.

A strong-armed quarterback and breakaway runner who is one of the NFL's most dynamic players, Vick is accused of helping run an interstate dog-fighting enterprise known as "Bad Newz Kennels" from 2001 through April 2007.

Dogfighting, in which two dogs bred to fight are placed in a pit to attack each other for spectators' entertainment and gambling, is illegal in the United States.

Vick had initially denied direct involvement in the pit bull fights that the indictment said took place on his property in Virginia.

UNDERPERFORMING DOGS

Prosecutors charged that dogs sometimes fought to the death and some losing or underperforming dogs had been shot, drowned, hanged, electrocuted or killed by being slammed to the ground.

Vick accepted the plea deal after two of his associates agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of their plea deals, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia, where the case is pending.

Purnell Peace, 35, and Quanis Phillips, 28, pleaded guilty last week before U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson to one count involving the dog-fighting ring, which prosecutors say was run from Vick's property in Virginia.

The judge set sentencing for the two men on November 30.

The only other defendant in the case, Tony Taylor, 34, pleaded guilty late last month and also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against Vick.

Vick, a rare talent who threw for 20 touchdowns and ran for more than 1,000 yards last season for the Falcons, lost major endorsements following his indictment. Nike suspended the release of a new Michael Vick shoe that had been set to hit stores this month and Reebok stopped selling his jerseys.

Heavily criticized in the media and by animal rights groups, Vick was told by the NFL not to attend preseason training with the Falcons.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

IMO, He deserves whatever he gets and more!

MG

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

Let's do the math:

He's facing FEDERAL racketeering charges for interstate gambling. The dog fighting charges are the least of his worries.

Vick has already lost contracts with Nike, AirTran, Donruss, Reebok and Rawlings. Sales of his #7 jersey has already been suspended. He has already been removed from Madden NFL rosters.

Word on the street here in ATL is he will have to replay around $33 million to Arthur Blank (Falcons owner) if he can't play. Michael says most of it is gone!

Personally I'd say he's phucked.

Are you asking what he should get or what he will get? Those are 2 very different things.

He should get 3-5 years after which he should get a chance to resume his career. I think banning him for life is too harsh.

He will get probation and probably a 1 year NFL suspension. Until I see otherwise, I don't think he'll get jailtime, money can buy you freedom in the US. Look at OJ.

I think the plea agreement will be one year in jail and heavy fines. I think the NFL will allow him to play again feeling that jail time is suitable punishment and a defacto ban.

I do not think they accept a plea over 1 yr.

BKTUNA
I am never going home

I think no matter what his sentence is, he won't play in the NFL again. The NFL will probably ban him, but even if they don't, it would be a HORRIBLE PR move for any team, ever, to sign him. The boos that Barry Bonds gets would be NOTHING compared to Vick's reception committee. He's toast.

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"The only normal people are those you don't know very well." Joe Ancis

The poll is.....



Fail to find the ambiguity in the question

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Let me say as a Black Man I am ashamed of these pampared athletes thinking that what ever the hell they do is cool. And it is all of our fault. They are told from sand box you run faster, throw father and jump higher. And never held accountable for there actions EVER Then when they PHUCK UP we are all like oh my word how can that happen. Now I will climb down.


If he did any of that s**t do a dog I hope he gets all the judge says he should have. Taking into account this is the first time he has done anything.

Also the outrage is comical at times: If he did this he should be banned from making a living in the NFL for life. PLEASE...

There are guys in the NFL right now that are playing and they have gotten behind the wheel drunk and killed a human being.


Where is the OUTRAGE


NYG

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Damm that water is cold!!!
And deep too!!!

"I've told Pacman [Jones] and any player, 'You have to earn your way back into the National Football League, and you have to earn it through your conduct.' It's not about what you tell the commissioner, or what you tell anyone. It's your conduct and your activities. I was disappointed with some of the activities that Pacman got involved in this spring, after we met and had a lot of discussions.''

-- Commissioner Roger Goodell.

*****Remember this quote whenever the league issues its discipline against Vick. He'll have to show some significant remorse, and be serious about it (or at least act serious and do all the right things) before he'll be allowed to play in the NFL again.

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"Pain is the fuel that fans the flames of my pyre. A battle plan is only as good as the general carrying it out on the field. This is my war son, and I have the biggest bombs and the smallest conscience"...

This problem of behavior of sports stars has deep and long-reaching roots. These star athletes are taught since junior high (while playing high school ball) that if they are good enough at the sport that is all that matters – even high schools are graduating good athletes who can’t read and we all know that tutors in college frequently takes tests for these jokers. They never learn accountability and it is we the public who lets them get away with it by buying the tickets, shoes, jerseys, etc.

Papa Joe Chevelier (radio sports commentator/talk show host) has had it right all along. We are a free market society and the free market (the fans) need to take a stand and say “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” We need to put aside team loyalty and chastise these thugs – tell their franchises we don’t support them, etc. If you found out that your attorney did the same crimes, you’d kick him to the curb.

I am a strong believer that once someone has done his time, he deserves to be restored to full citizen status –at least in the eyes of the government. What the private sector thinks of him is another matter. If the fans would bitch about this behavior as readily as they bitch about gas prices, maybe we’d get somewhere. Last week I saw an interview with Bill Maher on CNN with Larry King. Bill is on the board for PETA – by the way - and is a strark opponent of the war in Iraq. Regardless of your position on the war, Bill made a good point. He discussed the people who were willing to wait hours and hours in line to get a new Iphone but these same people would never show up to protest the war.

This is what we have become.

I think Vick needs some time behind bars, financial ruin, then let him back out to see if he can return to productive society. If the NFL as a private enterprise feels there is no more room for him in the league, that is their decision. If then fans make it clear that he is not acceptable any longer as a player, then let the fans speak and his career is over. If we continue to make these fools roll models, we need to chastise them when they fall short. If the fans continue to buy his crap and follow his team, we all lose.

So my vote is to let him do his time, pay his fines, then let the court of public opinion decide is he should play again. Maybe he would emerge from jail a reformed man, donate millions to the humane society and beg forgiveness from the public. This would be the ideal outcome. But these athletes don’t seem to have the humility to repent; let them rot while begging for one coin outside the Del Rey.

Here is what the so called experts are saying.

18 months in jail (probably half of that in a halfway house)

When he comes out ala Tank Johnson (he will not be suspended while in jail)
Roger Goodell will then suspend him for at least a year and someone will take a chance on him when and if he comes back....maybe as a RB, what he should have been playing from Day 1..

IMHO, He is Not an NFL Caliber QB

First He signed a morals clause with the NFL second He comitted a socially and morally repugnant crime and third He lied right to the NFL commissioners face. Why should he get a second chance in the NFL?

Michael Vick is a thug that deserves some time in jail for what he did.Here is a guy that has a 100 million dollar contract with Atl. and he throws away his life away for this.The NFL is not going to suspend him for life because we usually give second chances in this country.