North Augusta man found guilty, sentenced to house arrest for cockfighting

A North Augusta man recently was sentenced to federal probation following a conviction for cockfighting.

Roosevelt Curry, 69, was found guilty of felony sponsoring or exhibiting an animal in an animal fighting venture, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

U.S. District Judge Bruce Hendricks sentenced Curry to five years of probation and more than a year of house arrest with an electronic monitor, according to the release. Curry has a prior 2009 misdemeanor state cockfighting conviction on his record.

Curry and several others gathered at a home on Clayton Lane in Ridgeville, South Carolina on March 12, 2022, for a cockfighting tournament, according to the release. Curry and others fought their chickens and gambled on the outcomes of their birds fighting to death.

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Deputies received an anonymous tip about the gathering and when they arrived, they saw 30 people standing around a cockfighting pit, a blue barrel full of dead chickens with fighting wounds, and razor-sharp instruments that participants attached to the chickens' legs to make them more lethal during the fights, according to the release.

Deputies searched Curry's truck and found cockfighting equipment and chickens, some of which sustained obvious wounds during fighting, according to the release.

Seven of the people on scene were indicted in federal court for their role in organizing the fight or their longstanding history of participation in the illegal events, according to the DOJ. Six pleaded guilty.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: North Augusta man sentenced for cockfighting