Finally Free

by Michael Vick

  By the time I was ten, I stopped hanging out with him because I was spending so much time playing sports, fishing, and hanging out at the local Boys & Girls Club. However, I returned to his company nearly a dozen years later and got myself into the first situation that I couldn’t lie, manipulate, or buy my way out of.

  I didn’t fight dogs again until after I got out of college.

  Sometimes when I came home from Virginia Tech, I would run into Tony and talk to him about pit bulls. Tony always told me, “Just let me know when you want a real dog.”

  I would ask, “What is that supposed to mean?”

  One time he said, “Meet me tomorrow at eight o’clock.”

  So my friend, Quanis Phillips, and I met him, and he took us over to Smithfield, Virginia, to a dogfight. It was the first organized dogfight I had ever seen.

  My reaction was, “Man, y’all be doing this?!” The dogs were really fighting; I could tell they were really out to kill each other. I had seen dogfights where dogs snapped at each other, but these dogs actually were locked together, engaged, using strategies to try to hurt one another.

  I was looking at it like, Man, this is crazy. I hadn’t ever seen anything like it—to the point that it scared me. This was nothing compared to what I had seen as a kid.

  On one hand, I was intrigued by it. On the other hand, I had never seen anything so furious, so ferocious, and so violent.

  That’s the backdrop to the day I made the worst decision of my life: the day when I stopped being a spectator of dogfighting and instead began participating in it with vigor.

  It was March 2001, about a month before I was selected by Atlanta in the NFL draft. I was with Quanis at the Esquire Barbershop in Newport News. It was an area of town where there was plenty of trouble. Dope dealers and other questionable characters were usually outside the shop. I turned around and was surprised to see Tony walking past. I said, “Quanis, that’s Tony. Let’s see if he has some dogs.”

  By that time I no longer had Midnight; I had a new dog, Champagne, that I had bred. She had some puppies, and I was thinking about selling them, or training and fighting them and getting myself into the lifestyle; but I didn’t know how to do it and didn’t know where Tony was until that day.

  We ran out of the barbershop and I told Tony, “I want some of those dogs like you had last year.” He and I arranged to meet the next afternoon and, at that moment, I jumped into the dogfighting world.

  I met Tony the next day at two o’clock, and he was in my life every day after that until 2004.

  We went and bought two dogs that day, two dogs the next week, and another dog the next week. Tony told me he had a little place to house them. Someone he knew had some land, and we would house them there. They’d be safe.

  Tony immediately started giving me lessons, picking up where he’d left off when I was ten. He taught me what to look for in a fighting dog.

  He started teaching me the game of schooling and how to find a dog that likes to shoot for the legs—to the point where I got so good at it that I knew more than everyone in the crew. I was good at looking at a dog and knowing its weight, seeing its fighting style, matching up breeding pairs, and getting young dogs that were hot and ready to go. I received intensive training from Tony from April through June of 2001.

  As my stable of dogs grew, so did the need to find a new place to house them. I went from having fifteen dogs on some land to buying a piece of property, which was 1915 Moonlight Road in Surry County. I sent Tony on a mission to find that land, and we transported our dogs to our new property. From that point until federal agents shut down the operation six years later, the Moonlight Road location was the home of Bad Newz Kennels.

  I built a large house there for many of my friends to live in. I stopped by at least once a week on my Tuesday off-days from the NFL. Behind the house were black buildings where the dogfighting operation was centered—barns, kennels, an infirmary, and an upstairs area where fights took place.

  After my imprisonment, I was nauseated by a visit back to the location to shoot a segment for The Michael Vick Project documentary, which aired on Black Entertainment Television (BET). But back when I was involved in those activities, I may have become more dedicated to the deep study of dogs than I was to my Falcons playbook. I became better at reading dogs than reading defenses.

  That’s just so sad to say right now, because I put more time and effort into trying to master that pursuit than my own profession … which was my livelihood … which put food on the table for my family. It was that love and that passion for my wrongdoings that led me to lose everything I worked so hard for.

  Over the course of the next six years, Bad Newz Kennels participated in dogfights in various locations in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere. It was a wild time. I was living life like I was a street guy—we were always around some very rough and intense individuals. I had a separate persona. You never would have known I was a Pro Bowl quarterback.

  The fights generally took place in locations far out in the countryside, where there was virtually no population base. We’d conduct them in a desolate area no one knew anything about—where it was hidden and where no one outside the business would know something illegal was going on. However, it seemed like there were usually spectators.

  I could go into more detail, but I don’t want to teach people how to run a dogfight. I don’t want to glorify it. But I will tell you that I know too much about it, and it’s something I wish I’d never learned.

  When I was young, I witnessed dogfighting so much that I didn’t think it was wrong. But as I grew older, I knew it wasn’t right. We would hear about dogfighting operations getting busted. For instance, there was a dogfighting ring that was busted in Chesapeake, Virginia. But I also heard it was mainly a drug-related bust. A lot of guys in the dogfighting game were drug dealers—it was the way they were able to afford their dogs. So, when they were raided for drugs, the authorities found dogs, or vice versa, and either way it seemed like the drug bust routinely made bigger news and received more attention.

  So I knew you could get in trouble over dogfighting, but I never heard of anyone being convicted of a felony because of it, or going to jail or being prosecuted. I figured, It ain’t that bad. It’s wrong for the dogs, but this is what these dogs like to do. This is why they’re bred. That was my train of thought—that they’re bred to fight.

  I was so wrong.

  My associates and I were so confident we’d never be caught that we ignored some obvious tip-offs. For instance, one of the neighbors near the property on Moonlight Road came over about fifteen days before the raid and told the guys there, “Listen, state police came by and wanted to put a video surveillance camera on my property. They wanted to see all the traffic coming in and out of your house. They want to know what’s going on.” People were hearing a lot of rumors, but we didn’t take that as a sign that we were in trouble.

  I was not told about the neighbor’s visit until it was too late. The other guys just brushed the neighbor off. If I had known that, I would have shut down the operation. It was too close to home.

  This, I think, provides a clear picture of the situation I was in—how I failed to lead the people around me.

  Just a few days before the raid and that phone call, I was out at the property with Quanis and some other guys. What happened out there that day was bad, really bad.

  We had gone out and gotten rid of a lot of dogs. It’s a day I would like to forget. But I can’t. It will always haunt me. It was a day I wasn’t even supposed to be there. It was the day I said to myself, This is it. I’m not dealing with this anymore. I had actually already bought some horses and was getting into show horses. I was ready to move on.

  That was the day my conscience began speaking to me about the seriousness of the crimes I was committing. I remember looking at a dog and saying, “I wonder if one day I’ll be punished for this.” But I said, “You know what? It hasn’t happened since we got started i
n 2001, and look at my life now. Naw, I’m all right.”

  Everyone in dogfighting was doing the same thing: killing their dogs and getting rid of them when they lost. I had seen guys take the dogs right out of the fighting box and—bam—shoot them in the head.

  In January 2010, new documents emerged from the dogfighting investigation that my codefendants and I—among other things—allegedly killed dogs with shovels, but that’s not true. Nonetheless, I understand that the killings were, and still are, sickening.

  Needless to say, I was paralyzed after the phone call I received on the golf course a few days later. I guess I can’t say I should have been surprised; I just let my arrogance blind me from the truth of my life, and my ability to lie hid the truth from many around me.

  I had kept that world private for six years, which is amazing considering the sophistication of NFL security, where former FBI agents and the like are hired to keep a close watch over the players. But because the dogfighting world is so underground, so low-key, I was able to stay beneath the radar.

  After the raid of the house on Moonlight Road where dogfighting evidence was found, I said publicly, “I’m never at the house,” when in reality I went there regularly, including most Tuesdays during the football season. Three days after police raided my house in Smithfield, I met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. I assured him of my innocence and was permitted to participate in a ceremony at the April 28, 2007, NFL draft with other former Virginia Tech players Bruce Smith and DeAngelo Hall, to memorialize students who had recently been killed in a shooting spree on the Blacksburg campus.

  I really like Commissioner Goodell. He’s a very humble, fair, firm, and stern man who cares about you. He wants to see the right things for the integrity of the NFL and the integrity of the football family. If you cross the guidelines of the conduct policy, he wants to know what the absolute truth is.

  I knew how to lie with a straight face. Sad to say, Commissioner Goodell bought into what I was saying, and I think he truly believed me that I was telling the truth. I deeply regret not telling him the truth from the outset.

  It was a very nervous time for me. I knew I was going to try to lie my way through the whole dogfighting case and see if money, good lawyers, and manipulating the system could get me out of the position I was in—which was a terrible position. Temporarily, I received a reprieve from the commissioner, but it would be short-lived.

  Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and my coach at the time, Bobby Petrino, also believed me and trusted in me. If you had told Mr. Blank I was fighting dogs, he probably would’ve told you to get out of his face. He trusted me. So did a lot of people who had no idea I was living a lie.

  Commissioner Goodell, Mr. Blank, and Coach Petrino were the three key components to my future and my career. They all had trust in me.

  Looking back, I can see that my propensity for trying to lie my way out of trouble only made my consequences more severe. I got used to not being honest in a lot of situations. I got away with it for so long that I started to get into a routine and feel like, Hey, if it worked last time, it will work again.

  I’ve figured out since then that if you just tell the truth, it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences in the beginning than if you lie and someone else reveals the truth. When that happens, people look at you like, I can’t trust him. He’s not honest. He’s not loyal. He’s not forthright, and I can’t believe him moving forward. It screws up everything. Just deal with the consequences. Be a man and deal with it.

  Telling the truth is freeing. I found that when I lied, I put pressure on myself. Maintaining the lie was hard work because I had to pile one new lie on top of another. The truth is the truth, and that’s it. In the long run, you will benefit from telling the truth even if it comes with consequences.

  As the investigation deepened, my lawyer told me, “If you were involved, you need to tell me you were involved.” That’s when it was on the state, rather than the federal, level. I kept telling him, “No, no, I wasn’t involved, no.” The whole time investigators were building the case, my lawyer was saying no, but he was seeing all this evidence saying yes. If I had just told the truth, maybe I would have received a smack on the wrist instead of a lengthy sentence.

  If there had never been an indictment, I might have gotten out unscathed, and the full truth might never have been revealed. But when all the lies were exposed, it was tough. When the Feds got involved, they found all the evidence they needed. They had all the components to basically put me in jail, even without me saying anything.

  When they indicted me, we all knew I was wrong. Fittingly, the nation was outraged by my dogfighting activities, which I eventually described as “barbaric.” Lots of people wanted to see me severely punished.

  In June 2007, a federal grand jury charged me and my three codefendants—Tony Taylor, Quanis Phillips, and Purnell Peace—with conspiring to operate a dogfighting business and doing so across state lines, while also procuring and training dogs to participate in the operation. All four of us originally pled not guilty, but Tony, Quanis, and Purnell eventually changed their pleas and agreed to participate in the case against me. I was implicated not only in dogfighting, but also in helping to kill dogs and bankrolling the gambling part of the operation. Tony, Quanis, and Purnell gave detailed descriptions of my involvement in the Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting operation in which they too were participants.

  The evidence was so thorough, so convincing, that I decided to forgo a trial. On August 23, 2007, I signed a plea agreement and, four days later, pled guilty to a dogfighting conspiracy before US District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia, filing a confessional statement of facts that led to my imprisonment and sentencing. I held a press conference afterward, apologizing and vowing to redeem myself.

  I truly was sorry for my actions, as my confidant and pastor of Psalms Ministry, Domeka Kelley, knew perhaps better than anyone. He was probably the first person I sat down with and confessed to about all I had done—before I pled guilty or said anything publicly admitting my fault. He could tell that it was difficult for me to talk about—that I was sincere—and he prayed with me.

  After my troubles became public, my first coach in Atlanta, Dan Reeves, said that he never had any reason to think I was involved with dogfighting. “I was surprised, because Mike had a dog he would bring to practice,” Coach Reeves told the public. “He loved his dog. Personally, I didn’t think that was something he would do because he was a dog lover…. But he certainly made a huge mistake.”

  As would be expected, I was bombarded with negative publicity as soon as the news broke about the dogfighting. However, I didn’t expect what I perceived to be a public attack by my father. In interviews with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Post in late August 2007, my father said he warned me to stop dogfighting and that he believed I got involved in the practice during my college days at Virginia Tech. He also said I used to have dogfights in the garage of our family’s Newport News home.

  He acknowledged that I had recently turned down his request for money, around $700,000. But what about the fact that he was living in an apartment that I was paying for at that time?

  I felt betrayed. I felt like my very own father had thrown me under the bus. What made matters worse is that his information was false. This did great damage to our relationship. We had arguments so severe that we were ready to fistfight.

  If anything, those articles with my dad were supposed to be positive, and he was supposed to be very supportive, letting the world know I made a mistake and accepted responsibility for my wrongdoings. But for him to make matters worse was very, very disappointing to my family and mind-boggling to me.

  It is absolutely false that I had any involvement in dogfighting while at Virginia Tech. And even though my father attended some of my games there, he certainly wasn’t aware of what I did on campus.

  I felt like everything I had worked for in developing a relationship with my dad and helping him
was practically undone at the time. I wanted no more part of him. I forgave him when he did it, but I knew it would be awhile before I could talk to him and honestly confront him about the situation.

  Basically, what my dad did hurt my case. From that point on, I made a vow to myself: I was going to try and do the right things in my life moving forward; I wasn’t going to let the outside world have an effect on me; I was going to be conscious of the people I let into my life, even if it was family.

  I believe my dad was jealous of the role my high school coach, Tommy Reamon, played in my life as I grew up and developed into an NFL quarterback. It wasn’t only jealousy, though, that I believe motivated my father’s comments, which seemed bizarre to me. He was doing drugs at that time, and I saw the effect it had on the person I thought I knew.

  I took that with me to prison too. Until he changed his life, he was a scary person to be around. But the thing is, he’s usually a very giving, likable person. When he did what he did, you could see how drugs could change a person.

  Thankfully, my relationship with my father began to mend after I was released from prison, and it has improved steadily since then. He’s gotten his life into a much better place too.

  My legal troubles led the Falcons to pursue a return of some of the signing-bonus money they had already paid me for my contract from 2004. The club initially aimed to get back $20 million, but eventually was awarded the right to about $6.25 million.

  I’ll be honest: when Mr. Blank came after the signing-bonus money, I kind of had mixed feelings about it. Together, we changed the culture and the whole perspective on Atlanta Falcons football. I felt like I had helped that franchise generate a lot of money. When he asked for the signing bonus back, the only thing I could think was, Why would he do that if he cared so much about me and my family and what I did to help the Falcons organization?