By D. ORLANDO LEDBETTER
Pro Sports Writer
Atlanta-Journal Constitution

Story posted on Oct. 6, 2007

Steve Helber / AP Michael Vick arrives with his attorney Billy Martin (right) at federal court in Richmond, Va., Monday, Aug. 27, 2007.

John Grisham is somewhere kicking himself.

Even the greatest legal-drama writer of our time could not have come up with a plot so surreal.

You could just picture him with his legal pad, scribbling out the facts – all of which turned out to be vivid, true and very real – about the dog fighting and exploits of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and his Bad Newz Kennels posse.

Grisham's pitch would go something like this:

Let's see, there's a National Football League quarterback who has an alter ego and goes by the nickname of Ookie. In his spare time, he gathers up the old crew from the projects in Newport News, Va., and travels around the country fighting pit bulls for recreation.

Most publishers would toss that manuscript and ask for the author to come back with something just a bit more realistic.

But wait, it was all true.

It's still hard to believe, and even more shocking, that Vick has cost himself an estimated $144 million and placed his once promising NFL career in jeopardy by pleading guilty to federal charges.

Just a few days before the NFL draft in late April, police in Virginia raided a house owned by Vick.

I was in the midst of wrapping up our position-by-position draft series when Steve Wyche, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's beat writer, first called about the raid. He tackled the first round on these unbelievable stories.

D. Orlando Ledbetter Steve Wyche Jeremy Redmon Ronnie Ramos Chris Vivlamore

On the property because of the suspect activities of Vick's cousin, Davon T. Boddie, state police officials discovered nearly 60 dogs, mostly pit bulls, and instruments used for dog fighting, including a so-called rape stand, scales to weigh the dogs, a few treadmills, and chains that were buried in the ground and attached to car axles.

At first, our newspaper's readers were indifferent about the story. Here was one of the typical early posts on AJC.com from somebody named Chi Chi, "Who really cares? I don't. This is a stupid story. Can the AJC just cover the draft."

Even some folks in the building questioned the coverage. Many wondered aloud why we were spending so much time on the ridiculous notion that the quarterback who was the highest player in the league at one point by virtue of his $130 million deal would be involved in a clandestine dog fighting operation.

The local sports radio hosts were blasting us. My fraternity brothers, the Two Live Stews – Doug Stewart and former NFL player Ryan Stewart – accused us almost daily of having an agenda. The AJC was "out to get Vick."

We were just reporting the facts as they were uncovered.

But there was a steep learning curve.

We had heard about cock-fighting, but knew nothing about dog fighting. We had to become experts quickly. John Goodwin, the deputy manager of animal fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States, was extremely helpful.

He dropped the first bombshell of the case when he said the Humane Society had been hearing Vick's name surface in dog fighting circles, but had not been able to locate his "yard." That's dog fighting speak for where a dog fighter holds his dogs, trains and possibly stages fights.

We'd just gotten over Vick's infamous water bottle scandal, the missed congressional hearing, the hiring of new coach Bobby Petrino and the trading of Vick's insurance policy (backup quarterback Matt Schaub) to the Houston Texans.

It was about time for the off-season to begin.

Only there wouldn't be an off-season on the Falcons' beat this year.

Instead it was time to research other dog fighting cases and see if there were any connections to Vick's yard.

It was time to start filing Freedom of Information Act requests all over the country, an effort that was coordinated and executed by our Pro Sports Editor Chris Vivlamore.

When it came to resources, our Sports Editor, Ronnie Ramos, was quick to approve travel and order us on planes to investigate leads throughout the Southeast. A former prosecutor in South Carolina, one who had sent a dog fighter away for 40 years, had heard of Vick having a yard in Palmetto State.

There were horrific cases – Dayton, Ohio; Texas; Louisiana; and South Carolina – that were strikingly similar. The inventory lists were almost identical: Treadmills, rape stands and chains buried in the ground. Law enforcement officials would be interested in a property usually for some other reason connected to drugs or firearms. They'd get on the land and find a gang of fighting dogs.

We started to log all of the information we were gathering, looking for connections to the Vick case.

The next bombshell in the case came when we found that the web site VickK9Kennels.com was linked to one of Vick's companies, MV7 LLC.

Vick's attorney Lawrence H. Woodward, was already ticked at the AJC over the water bottle incident, and was not talking. He did not return well over 100 phones, most to his office and a lot to his home and cell numbers. We had to find out if the site was legitimate or just a prank site.

A check with the Virginia State Corporation Commission revealed that MV7 LLC was incorporated in the state and listed Woodward as the registered agent.

That story wasn't very long and was played inside, but it let us know that we had to hunker down for a long summer.

On the site, his company, MV7, LLC, professed to be in the business of breeding pit bulls and other dogs as pets, not for fighting. VickK9Kennels.com stated that, "We do not promote, support or raise dogs for fighting and will not knowingly sell, give, or trade any dog that may be used for fighting."

The property Vick owned in Virginia where the dogs were confiscated was listed as the address for the web site and the company, "1915 Moonlight Road, Smithfield, Va."

Wyche and I would talk daily and confer with our editor, Vivlamore. At this point, we figured Vick was either in the dog breeding business or was involved in a dog fighting operation that could lead to a federal investigation if the dogs were transported in interstate commerce. (My Constitutional Law professor Burt Lockwood at the University of Cincinnati would be proud that I'd remember that little bit of black letter law from his class.)

As football writers, we were comfortable with writing about Vick's completion percentage and running ability. Covering a wide-ranging dog fighting operation, we knew we'd need help.

Wyche and I started contacting the FBI, DEA, ATF and Department of Justice until we found the proper federal agency that handles dog fighting investigations. We discovered the Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General was the federal agency.

Nick Wass / AP Michael Vick has thrown for 11,505 yards and rushed for 3,859 yards in six seasons with the Falcons.

Wyche started working the state angle and getting to know the commonwealth's prosecutor, Gerald Poindexter, of Surry County, Va. I began working the federal angle.

The cavalry arrived in the midst of a massive re-organization when our editor, Vivlamore, got the ear of senior editors and told them how the two football writers were playing dog fighting investigators and were gathering all of this information.

Some of the finest reporters at the paper jumped in, including Bill Torpy, Bill Rankin and this young fellow we had just hired from Richmond named Jeremy Redmon.

Redmon had covered the U.S. Federal Courts in Richmond and knew some of the players on a first name basis.

At the courthouse in Richmond, Redmon kept us ahead of the pack once Vick and the rest of the Bad Newz Kennels posse – Purnell "P-Funk" Peace, Quanis "Q" Phillips and Tony "T" Taylor – were indicted in July. Redmon and I would go to Richmond, while Wyche would stay back and take care of the team.

Vick would later plead guilty in August after his "friends" all accepted guilty pleas and agreed to testify against him.

Wyche and I thought if we could just get the season started, the Vick stuff would go away until the December sentencing.

Wrong!

In September, court documents revealed that Vick had tested positive for marijuana a day after the Commonwealth finally got around to indicting him on state charges.

That's right, not even the great John Grisham could make this up.

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