found guilty of violating<\/a> the federal Animal Welfare Act\u2019s prohibitions against possessing, selling, transporting, and delivering animals to be used in fighting ventures.\u00a0<\/p>\nLeshon Johnson holds press conference at practice field of Giants Stadium in 1998. New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cLeShon Johnson will face justice for building another particularly egregious and violent dog fighting scheme,\u201d Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said in a statement. \u201cAs Johnson was well aware, dog fighting is a felony in all 50 states. To anyone attempting to build violent and illicit business schemes: you can run, but you can\u2019t hide from the Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities seized 190 dogs from Johnson\u2019s property, marking the largest seizure of that kind in a federal dog fighting case, and said that he had been running a \u201cmajor operation since at least 2007 that bred and sold fighting dogs for profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former NFL player LeShon Johnson was sentenced to five years in prison for operating a dog-fighting operation.<\/p>\n
Johnson is said to have run the operation as Mal Kant Kennels in Oklahoma and Federal prosecutors said in a 2025 news release that he had \u201cmarketed and sold stud rights and offspring from winning fighting dogs to other dog fighters looking to incorporate the Mal Kant Kennels \u2018bloodline\u2019 into their own dog fighting operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson, who played in the NFL from 1994 to 1999, previously pleaded guilty in an Oklahoma state court to dogfighting charges in 2004.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Billy Coyle IV, Johnson\u2019s attorney, told ESPN that a final decision has not been made to appeal the sentencing, but he has recommended to Johnson that he file an appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Johnson played for three teams during his five years in the NFL.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He spent time with the Packers, Cardinals and his final season in the league with the Giants. He finished his pro football career in the XFL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeShon Johnson, the former NFL running back whose career included one season with the Giants, was handed five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":997459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[1142,9488,23876,7,519,1917,56,2321,2469,6,1135,9],"class_list":["post-997458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-giants","tag-athlete-arrests","tag-crime","tag-dogs","tag-football","tag-giants","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-giants","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkgiants","tag-nfl","tag-oklahoma","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117249740878851545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}