Former Arizona Cardinals running back LeShon Johnson is headed to federal prison after prosecutors said he built a sprawling dogfighting and trafficking operation out of Oklahoma.
Johnson was sentenced Thursday to five years, or 60 months, in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a $30,000 fine after being convicted on six federal dogfighting charges.
The case included a massive seizure from Johnson’s property: federal agents rescued 190 pit bulls, the largest single-individual dog seizure in federal law enforcement history.
According to evidence presented at trial, Johnson had been running a profitable breeding operation under the name “Mal Kant Kennels” as early as 2007. Prosecutors said he advertised dogs online as “champions” and “grand champions,” labels tied to surviving three to five illegal fights. He also sold puppies from winning bloodlines and collected stud fees, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profit.
The conviction is Johnson’s second major animal cruelty case. He previously pleaded guilty to state dogfighting charges in Oklahoma in 2004 under the business name “Krazyside Kennels.”
Johnson played three seasons for the Cardinals in the mid-1990s. Before his NFL career, he was a standout at Northern Illinois University in 1993, where he earned unanimous All-American honors and finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting.
“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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