Georgia man sentenced to 475 years for dogfighting

A Georgia man who authorities said kept more than 100 dogs in cruel conditions at his home has been sentenced to 475 years in prison after being found guilty last month of dogfighting and cruelty to animals, prosecutors said.

The man, Vincent Lemark Burrell, 57, of Dallas, Georgia, was found guilty by a jury on Jan. 30 of 93 counts of dogfighting and 10 counts of cruelty to animals.

The verdict came after a four-day trial in which authorities said they had found 107 dogs, many of them underweight, scarred and missing teeth, chained up in his yard in 2022, the Paulding County District Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Judge Dean C. Bucci of the Paulding County Superior Court gave Burrell the maximum possible sentence.

Authorities had been acting on a search warrant issued after an Amazon driver raised concerns about the welfare of the dogs, which the driver said he saw chained in the yard, according to the statement.

Officers sent to Burrell's house in Dallas, which is about 32 miles outside Atlanta, found the dogs, most of them pit bulls, without access to food or water, the Paulding County Sheriff's Office said at the time.

The dogs, some of which were emaciated, had been tied with heavy chains to trees and left with little to no shelter. Others were boarded in the basement of Burrell's house, where the odor of urine and feces was so strong that officers had to wear protective equipment to enter, the Sheriff's Office said.

They also discovered "numerous items associated with dogfighting," including a chicken used to entice the dogs, a stick to pry open their jaws, a kit used to treat them after fights and "documents linking Burrell's dogs to other known dog fighters," according to the statement by the district attorney's office.

Further medical examination of the dogs revealed that they had rashes from their collars and scars consistent with dogfighting, according to the statement. The dogs were taken into county custody, and then transferred to a rescue organization, the statement said.

Burrell was arrested and charged the day officers searched his home.

A lawyer for Burrell could not be immediately reached for comment Sunday. The district attorney's office also could not be immediately reached Sunday for further information regarding the case.

Chief Trevor Hess of the Paulding County Marshal Bureau said he appreciated how seriously the case had been taken.

"The average person doesn't realize how prevalent dogfighting still is," he said in the statement from the district attorney's office.

Dogfighting is a felony in all 50 states, but it remains prevalent across the country, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Dogs are bred especially for fights, which usually last an hour or two, and end when one of the animals becomes incapacitated. According to the Humane Society of the United States, dogs involved in fights often die from blood loss, shock, dehydration, exhaustion or infection.