‘Extreme form of cruelty.’ Kentucky man gets one year prison sentence in cockfighting case
A man who asked a witness to lie in a cockfighting case in Kentucky has been sentenced to a year and one day in jail.
A judge also fined Oakley D. “Whitey” Hatfield $1,000. Hatfield was one of nine people charged after Kentucky State Police raided a cockfighting venue at Bald Rock, in Laurel County, in June 2021.
Police acted on a tip from an animal welfare group called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, which has made videos of cockfighting pits in Kentucky and other states and pushed authorities to investigate.
When police arrived there were about 80 people at the Bald Rock pit, which had stadium-style seating and a concession stand, according to court records.
A federal judge ruled that while Hatfield was awaiting trial earlier this year, he asked a witness to lie and say his girlfriend, Jacklyn Johnson, had only minimal involvement in the cockfighting operation. The witness said she actually had extensive involvement.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Hanly A. Ingram ordered Hatfield’s pretrial release be revoked, so he had served more than four months before he was sentenced.
Hatfield pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiring to sponsor and exhibit animals in a fighting venture and one charge of attending an animal fight.
Johnson also has pleaded guilty but has not been sentenced.
In a sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate K. Smith described cockfighting as “an extreme form of cruelty to animals.”
Roosters are fitted with sharp metal implements to gouge and cut each other during fights. They suffer critical injuries and often die.
If both roosters are hurt too badly to continue fighting, handlers place them in a “drag pit” and wait to see which one dies first, which can take hours, Smith said in the memo.
U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom sentenced Hatfield Aug. 22 in federal court in London.
Animal welfare groups have identified Kentucky as a hot spot both for cockfighting and for supplying birds for fights, which are illegal under federal and state law.
In July, a federal grand jury charged six people in connection with a cockfighting business in Letcher County that allegedly drew hundreds of spectators.
