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Dogfight task force: Don't have Vick video

ATLANTA — The Virginia Animal Fighting Task Force, which is investigating dogfighting at a property that was owned by Michael Vick, does not have a videotape of the Falcons quarterback at a dogfight.

Kathy Strouse, the lead investigator, said informants indicated that a tape exists of Vick at a dogfight.

"Let's be very accurate here, because some of the reports out there are not accurate," Strouse told the Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. "We have information from informants that a tape exists of a dogfight and that Michael Vick is present. Whether that tape exists, we do not know that it exists."

Strouse, the animal-control coordinator for Chesapeake, Va., noted that the Humane Society of the United States offers rewards of $2,500 for evidence that leads to the prosecution and conviction of animal cruelty.

Gerald Poindexter, the commonwealth's attorney in Surry County, said a meeting was set for Monday to review evidence in the case. As of Wednesday morning, Strouse had not been contacted but was expecting an invitation.

"We have not handed Mr. Poindexter all of the evidence, but we're ready to lay it out for him," Strouse said.

Strouse has been qualified as an expert witness in a previous dogfighting case in Virginia. Strouse would not buy the contention that the evidence seized — which included nearly 70 dogs, four treadmills and documents — from the property owned by Vick was evidence of a kennel.

"Absolutely not," Strouse said. "Not when you find the blood-stained pit."

VicksK9Kennels.com, a Web site that advocates the breeding of dogs, has been linked to one of Vick's companies, MV7, LLC.

"Let me be very, very clear: There's no doubt in my mind that this was a dogfighting operation," Strouse said, "based not only on what we found at the property but from intelligence, documentation and other evidence we've gathered."

Strouse would not deny or confirm whether the task force had any evidence directly tying Vick to dogfighting.

"That's part of the investigation," Strouse said.

Strouse assisted in the dog investigation of the Benjamin Butts case in Surry County in 2000. A total of 33 dogs were removed and later returned after he was not prosecuted. Butts died Feb. 17.

"One of the treadmills looks identical to one we have pictures of from the Butts case," Strouse said. "One of our officers identified one of the dogs as looking very similar to one of the dogs from the Butts case."

Virginia officials believe the two operations are linked.

"We've gathered some information from some informants that would indicate that," Strouse said.

Virginia is a hotbed for dogfighting. There have been recent convictions in Richmond, Chesapeake and Spotsylvania. The most notorious Virginia case was of "Fat" Bill Reynolds, publisher of a dogfighting magazine, who spent 30 months in prison on federal charges of sending images of pit-bull fights across state lines.

"We think that it's very prevalent. That's why the task force has been formed, because it's a serious problem in Virginia," Strouse said. "The rural localities don't have the resources to work one of these cases on their own. We provide investigators, housing for the dogs and experts to testify."

D. Orlando Ledbetter writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.