ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WSPA) – Two Polk County men were sentenced on Thursday for engaging in dog fighting and other criminal acts.
Laddie Dwayne McMillian, 47, will serve 16 months in prison and Derrick Twitty, 48, will serve six. Both will also have two years of supervised release when they leave prison and cannot own any dogs during their supervised release.
According to court documents, McMillian bred, trained and fought dogs for nearly 15 years. He boasted about owning a dog fighting operation and reportedly shared a video of his “yard” with 13 dogs, as well as videos of his dogs fighting.
In one video, two dogs are seen fighting in a fighting pit. By the end of the video, their faces are bleeding.
In 2020, Twitty reportedly joined the fighting operation.
The pair regarded one dog, “Slick Rick” as a prize fighter and reportedly subjected him to multiple fights between 2018 and January 2022, when he died just weeks after a fighting.
“The life and death of this dog reflects the defendants’ extraordinary cruelty, abuse, and
mistreatment of animals for entertainment – criminal conduct that our division has and will
continue to aggressively prosecute,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice
Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“The defendants in this case treated dogs like a commodity, bred and trained to fight, often to
death, for the amusement of spectators taking part in this cruel activity,” said U.S. Attorney
King. “Dogfighting is an illegal blood sport that subjects animals to incredible pain and
suffering. It is also a federal crime and one that has the full attention of my office and our law
enforcement counterparts.”
