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Derek Garcia, 41, of Woodbridge, Virginia, pleaded guilty to conspiring to engage in dog fighting, and Camp Springs, Maryland resident Ricardo Thorne, 52, admitted to advertising the fights on the Internet to turn a profit, according to federal prosecutors.
According to court documents, between at least May 2015 and August 2020, Garcia, Thorne, and others used a private messaging app they referred to as “The DMV Board” or “The Board" to discuss training fighting dogs, exchange videos about dogfighting, and coordinate fights without alerting law enforcement.
They also used the app to compare methods of killing dogs that lost fights and to circulate media reports about others who had been caught by police and minimize the chance they themselves were caught.
Prosecutors say that in November 2015, Thorne told another co-conspirator that he made a lot of money by charging admission to dog fights that he held for years at a warehouse off Kenilworth Avenue in DC.
He also admitted that he killed six other dogs in less than a year during the conspiracy.
As part of his plea agreement, Garcia admitted that in December 2016, he sold a fighting dog to another person in the ring for $1,700, and in March the following year, when another member of the conspiracy was arrested for dogfighting, he helped advise about how to delete messages on the DMV Board without deleting the group from the messaging app.
Prosecutors said that in June 2017, Thorne posted to the DMV Board that the most he had ever won in one fight was $15,000, later boasting in the message board in January 2019, that his “Darkside Kennels” had been around for over 20 years.
On July 30, 2019, Thorne was found to be in possession of dogfighting paraphernalia and nine pit bull-type dogs, many with scarring patterns and lacerations consistent with dogfighting, according to investigators.
When he was questioned , Thorne denied any involvement in dogfight and stated that he did not know there were nine dogs tied up in his backyard.
Garcia later posted on the DMV Board narrating a fight between two dogs, one of which he handled. He stated that his dog was a winner and bragged the opponent's dog stopped moving for more than a half hour after the fight.
In August, Garcia, Thorne, and four others were indicted for their roles in the dogfighting conspiracy. If convicted, each faces a maximum term of five years in prison.
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