A 42-year-old Wildwood man has been arrested after an investigation revealed evidence of chicken fighting.
Jose Luis Urueta-Guillen was arrested Thursday morning after Sumter County Sheriff’s deputies searched his residence and two nearby vacant lots looking for evidence of animal fighting.
According to a sheriff’s office report, members of the Special Investigations Squad and Criminal Investigation Division executed the search warrant at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the residence located at 3550 CR 230B, as well as two vacant lots on the same road.
The operation was the result of a two-month-long investigation where members of the Special Investigations Squad conducted physical and electronic surveillance of people at the three locations who were involved in the tending, caring, conditioning, training and/or baiting of roosters for fighting, as well as committing acts of cruelty toward animals.
Deputies recovered 36 roosters, vitamins, supplements, antibiotics and growth enhancements utilized during the training process of the birds. They also found numerous items used to treat roosters injured in the fights.
Several roosters had wounds consistent with recent fighting and open wounds that appeared to be infected, the report says, adding that one rooster had a “gaping, untreated wound in the area of its neck.”
Urueta-Guillen, who was on scene during the search, was arrested for violating Florida’s Animal Fighting Act and transported to the Sumter County Detention Center. He was charged with aggravated animal cruelty resulting in unnecessary pain or suffering; and baiting, breeding, training, transporting, selling, owning, possessing or using any wild or domestic animal for the purpose of animal fighting or baiting.
As of Friday afternoon, Urueta-Guillen was being held on $6,000 bond.
