Frederick Douglass Moorefield, Jr., Dogfighting, Maryland 2024

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Former Deputy Chief Sentenced for Dogfighting Charges in Maryland

Baltimore, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Frederick Douglass Moorefield, Jr., age 64, Arnold, Maryland, to 18 months in federal prison, six months of home detention, and a $20,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release, for his involvement in a multi-state dogfighting conspiracy.

Moorefield was ordered to pay a forfeiture money judgment of $21,576, in addition to the fine. The sentence was announced by Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.

Moorefield’s involvement in the dogfighting conspiracy began after officers from Anne Arundel County Animal Control responded to a report of two dead dogs found in a plastic dog food bag in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2018. Investigators found mail addressed to Moorefield inside the bag and a necropsy determined that the dogs bore wounds and scarring patterns consistent with dogfighting.

Moorefield operated under the kennel name ‘Geehad Kennels’ and used his home in Arnold to keep, train, and breed dogs for dogfighting for more than 20 years. A review of Moorefield’s phone and iCloud account showed numerous message exchanges regarding dogfighting with other members of the ‘DMV Board’, a dogfighting enterprise that operated in and around Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

Moorefield’s messages also contained several exchanges arranging, or ‘hooking,’ dogfights. In these conversations, Moorefield would ‘call out a weight’ by identifying the weight and sex of the dog he wanted to sponsor in the fight. Other dogfighters would then propose a fight against their own dogs or match Moorefield with another contact who had a dog in the same weight class.

The dogfighters then agreed on wagers and set a date for the fight, usually six to eight weeks after the match was made. If one of Moorefield’s dogs lost a fight, but did not die, Moorefield killed the dog. One method Moorefield used to kill the dogs was utilizing a device that