Former Kentucky teacher who ran cockfighting pit gets jail sentence and $95,000 fine
A former Kentucky teacher who ran a cockfighting operation has been sentenced to 12 months and one day in jail and fined $95,000.
The sentence for Millard Oscar Hubbard, 73, includes six months on home detention after he leaves jail.
Hubbard pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
Hubbard owned a cockfighting venue in Clay County called Riverside, which had stadium-style seating, storage areas for roosters, several fighting pits and a concession stand, according to court records.
Hubbard operated the venue with help from Timothy Sizemore, who also worked at the Blackberry pit in Pike County, according to court records.
The investigation showed that Hubbard collected the entry fees at Riverside while Sizemore coordinated the fights, including hiring referees and matching the roosters.
Hubbard and Sizemore split the money, and also split the proceeds from the concession stand after paying workers, according to a sentencing memorandum from Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Mattingly Williams.
The bloody enterprise, which often leaves roosters dead, can be lucrative. In one example cited in a plea deal Sizemore signed, the Blackberry pit hosted an event in June 2012 with more than 50 roosters entered and a purse of about $42,000.
Hubbard sold the pit to another man in November 2019. He told the buyer he could make $3,000 to $4,000 a week running the venue, according to the sentencing memo.
The time period covered in the plea by Sizemore, in which he admitted working with Hubbard, was from November 2018 until December 2019, but the prosecutor said in a memo that Hubbard had hosted cockfights as far back as 2005.
When an undercover police officer went to Riverside in 2019, Hubbard told him people traveled from as far away as Texas to bring roosters to the fights, Hubbard told the officer.
Prosecutors pushed for a big fine for Hubbard.
As the owner and co-operator of the pit, Hubbard “provided countless opportunities for others to violate state and federal law by participating in cockfighting and he financially benefited from his participation . . .,” Mattingly said in the memo.
People who wrote letters of support for Hubbard said he had been a teacher, bus supervisor and coach in the Clay County school system before he retired, and praised him as a family man and a generous person who worked to help the community.
Clay County Judge-Executive John W. Johnson and Manchester Mayor Jim Ed Garrison were among those who wrote letters supporting Hubbard.
In a prior case, Hubbard pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiring to distribute 300 pounds of marijuana and was sentenced to 32 months in prison.
U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom sentenced Hubbard Tuesday in federal court in London.
The case was part of a larger investigation of cockfighting in Kentucky in which more than 15 people were charged in February with taking part in cockfights at pits in Clay, Laurel and Pike counties and a fourth site at Ewing, on the border of Nicholas and Fleming counties.
In addition, Cruz Alejandro Mercado-Vazquez was charged with offering Mason County Sheriff Patrick Boggs more than $5,000 in December 2020 to get protection for a planned cockfighting operation.
Mercado-Vazquez pleaded guilty but has not been sentenced. He faces up to 10 years in jail.
Cockfighting is illegal under state and federal law but has been common in Kentucky, and the state has been a hub of illegal trafficking in the birds, according to animal welfare advocates.
A group called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, released video in July 2020 that showed two Clay County sheriff’s deputies at a cockfight but not making arrests.
Sheriff Patrick Robinson said at the time that he believed the officers were not aware cockfighting is illegal.
