ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York’s attorney general says the owner of the Ulster County farm where fighting roosters were raised has been arrested in Florida.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says a warrant from his office was executed by deputies at a home outside Tampa early Wednesday morning for 71-year-old Moises Cruz.
He was being held pending extradition and it couldn’t be determined if he has a lawyer.
About 6,000 birds have now been rescued in a three-county cockfighting takedown last weekend that resulted in nine felony arrests in Queens, Brooklyn and Ulster County.
Schneiderman says the gamecocks were given performance-enhancing drugs, had razor-sharp gaffs attached in place of their spurs and were locked in pens.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has established a temporary shelter for the animals taken from the farm in Plattekill.
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