A senior official in the Biden administration’s Department of Defense, Frederick Douglass Moorefield Jr., 62, was arrested and charged with heinous animal abuse crimes on Monday.
According to the charging documents, Moorefield ran a bloody dogfighting ring for decades and would viciously execute the losing animals.
The New York Post reported —
The investigation into Moorefield — who named his dogfighting business “Geehad Kennels,” an apparent homophone for “jihad” — began in 2018 when Anne Arundel County Animal Control discovered the bodies of two dogs in plastic bags that included mail addressed to his Arnold, Md., home, according to a recently unsealed affidavit in the case.
“The distribution and number of recent and healed dog bite wounds (scars) present on both dogs was consistent with organized dogfighting,” an FBI agent wrote in the charging documents. “Based on this information, I believe that Moorefield sponsored each of these dogs in a dogfight.”
Losing dogs were viciously executed, the FBI agent said.
Investigators wrote that they found jumper cables in Moorefield’s basement covered in fur and blood, and believed they were used to electrocute losing dogs to death.
“Individuals who sponsor dogs for dogfighting often kill dogs that lose a fight, and as a result of these fights, I believe the dogs were killed during the fight or that Moorefield killed each of them afterwards for performing poorly,” they wrote.
Authorities said Moorefield and his partner, Mario Flythe, 49, used aliases to discuss their dogfighting operation on encrypted messages apps.
A raid of their homes found 12 dogs along with “veterinary steroids, training schedules, a carpet that appeared to be stained with blood, and a weighted dog vest with a patch reading ‘Geehad Kennels,'” officials said.
In a statement, the Department of Defense said they were aware of the charges and that Moorefield no longer was in the workplace, but had no further comment.
“We are aware of the criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland,” the Defense Department statement said. “We can confirm that the individual is no longer in the workplace, but we cannot comment further on an individual personnel matter.”
Moorefield faces up to five years in prison if convicted of the charges.
The Horn editorial team