PETA shenanigans

Quote from Rick Mardis, Cotinental Breeding station.
"Last Thursday September 11, I was in front of the judge for pretrial hearing and motions. Prior to meeting with the judge, we made another effort to settle this case. We have tried many times to agree to a plea bargain as long as the entry fees were declared legal, but the DAs has been adamant in stating entry fees in pigeon racing are illegal. As little as six weeks ago, the assistant DA would not agree to this and were still pursuing entry fees as being illegal gambling. To avoid a trial, an agreement was reached and put into a blind plea bargain. A blind plea allows the judge to set the penalty.

The DA finally admitted entry fees in pigeon racing are not illegal and this was put in writing and on record. I then agreed to a no contest plea on pooling charges and agreed to allow the judge to set the penalty. The DA asked for a $50,000 fine but the judge fined me only $1,000 and put me on six months unsupervised probation. After the probation period, my record will be expunged.

My whole efforts were to prevent entry fees from being declared illegal. I also have on the record that there was no animal cruelty and the judge's statement that he didn't see much difference between this and a golf tournament. This should protect our sport against future charges on entry fees and slow down Peta's attempt to stop us from racing our birds. I spent a great deal of money and many sleepless nights to secure this goal. I offered to agree to this over a year ago at the beginning if entry fees were excluded.

When I get a copy of the plea agreement and the transcript of the hearing, I will then verbatim point out the positive statements that came out of the hearing. In a few weeks, I will give a detailed breakdown on the expenses and donations.

Thanks, Rick Mardis