Former Arizona Cardinals running back LeShon Johnson is headed to federal prison after a judge sentenced him to five years for running a sprawling dogfighting and trafficking operation out of Oklahoma.
Johnson, who spent three seasons with the Cardinals in the mid-1990s, also received three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine after being convicted on six federal dogfighting charges. Federal agents recovered 190 pit bulls from his property, the largest single-person dog seizure in federal law enforcement history.
Prosecutors said Johnson built a profitable breeding business under the name “Mal Kant Kennels” as early as 2007. He advertised his dogs online as “champions” and “grand champions” - labels tied to surviving three to five illegal fights - then sold puppies from winning bloodlines and collected stud fees, pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profit.
This wasn’t Johnson’s first run-in with dogfighting authorities. The former NFL back, who starred at Northern Illinois University in 1993, earned unanimous All-American honors and finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting. He previously pleaded guilty to state dogfighting charges in Oklahoma in 2004 under the name “Krazyside Kennels.”
“LeShon Johnson will face justice for building another particularly egregious and violent dogfighting scheme,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. “As Johnson was well aware, dogfighting is a felony in all 50 states.”
Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp of the FBI New Orleans Field Office said, “The animals in this case were defenseless, and the defendant used them to harm each other for his entertainment.”
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