HOWELL — A motor vehicle stop by township police officers eventually led state authorities to a property whose renter ended up being charged with using the premises for illegal cockfighting activities and various other animal cruelty charges.
Howell police Detective Lt. Steve Dreher said an estimated 1,000 roosters were found on a 15-acre Brown Road farm that was being rented by Raphael Leonardo, 70. Dreher said officers also found blood-stained fighting rings, huts where the birds were being housed and trained, sharpened razor spurs that are strapped on the birds during a fight and medical supplies that could be used to tend to wounded birds.
Dreher said that in the days following the initial motor vehicle stop additional arrests were made as township police assisted the ASPCA, which staked out the property and arrested people who were coming to pick up roosters there.
He said the case started at 6:51 p.m. Sept. 3, when patrolmen Jesse Moore and Peter Sukola made a routine motor vehicle stop of a motorist who was driving on Route 9 north near the NJ Transit bus facility. Dreher said the officers started questioning the driver about a caged rooster he had in the back of his vehicle.
The officers’ questioning of the individual eventually led them to contact the state ASPCA, which obtained a search warrant for the Brown Road property. Dreher said the identity of the motorist is being kept secret by police because he was instrumental in helping authorities make additional arrests.
Dreher said that after the ASPCA brought various animal cruelty charges against two Jersey City men and against Leonardo, Howell police assisted ASPCA officers who subsequently arrested and charged numerous other individuals who arrived at the Brown Road property expecting to pick up fighting birds.
He said the 1,000 birds that were found on the Brown Road property had to be euthanized.
— Kathy Baratta