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Dear Friends,
We’ve told you we are investigating animal fighting crimes. Today, I want to tell you that local authorities have arrested the nation’s most prominent cockfighter—Anthony DeVore, of southeast Oklahoma—a man who has been masquerading as a “farmer” and “gamefowl enthusiast” while handing out ill-gotten and illegal donations to state lawmakers and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt in an effort to weaken Oklahoma’s anti-cruelty laws.
But it’s not stopped at Oklahoma’s borders. DeVore, working with his co-conspirator Blake Pearce, a member of a multi-generational cockfighting family in Oklahoma, has been organizing cockfighters in 10 additional states and mounting campaigns to decriminalize cockfighting.
DeVore and Pearce raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from cockfighters across the country—mainly by auctioning off fighting birds, which are then illegally trafficked in violation of federal law. They used those funds to buy influence with politicians and gut the key state prohibitions against animal fighting. While they were wearing three-piece suits and lobbying lawmakers and pretending to be law-abiding citizens, they were neck-deep in illegal cockfighting.
This summer, our investigators at Animal Wellness Action and SHARK caught DeVore and Pearce at illegal cockfighting derbies in McIntosh County. These men were at the center of illegal cockfighting derbies in Oklahoma. They have acted as key cogs in a sprawling network shipping fighting birds to Guam, Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries, where animals are slashed to death in massive derbies entangled with dangerous organized crime networks.
Now the façade has collapsed. The McIntosh County District Attorney has issued an arrest warrant for DeVore. And the Oklahoma Ethics Commission just fined and disbanded the cockfighting political group he created with Pearce, documenting a raft of campaign finance violations and barring them from forming another PAC for two years.
Cockfighting Must End
Cockfighting is not a cultural pastime. It is organized crime. It is cruelty, organized savagery, and knowingly lawless behavior. And it’s also a dangerous driver of virulent Newcastle disease and highly pathogenic avian influenza. Outbreaks of avian disease, spread in part by cockfighting, have already cost U.S. taxpayers billions, forced mass depopulations of millions of farmed birds, and caused price spikes for eggs and poultry.
That is why we must pass the FIGHT Act (S. 1454 and H.R. 3946) in Congress. This bipartisan bill strengthens federal law, cracks down on shipping fighting birds, and gives law enforcement more tools to dismantle the networks behind this cruelty and criminality.
We have nearly 1,000 endorsing organizations and agencies, including 24 state sheriffs’ associations, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the National District Attorneys Association, the United Egg Producers, and the American Gaming Association. This is extraordinary support, reflecting the national consensus that it is time to dismantle dogfighting and cockfighting networks on every inch of U.S. soil.
Please call 202-225-3121 and write your U.S. representative and senators today. Urge them to support the FIGHT Act—S. 1454 in the Senate and H.R. 3946 in the House—and stop the cruelty and contagion and crime delivered by animal fighting. [[link removed]]

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We can end this cruelty and shut down the criminal networks, but it takes resources and resolve. We ask for both of those from you.
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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