PROVIDENCE – A Rhode Island man has pleaded guilty in federal court for his role in a Providence-based cockfighting ring.
Onill Vazquez Lozada changed his plea in US District Court in Providence on Tuesday, court records show.
Lozada admitted that he possessed roosters for the purpose of having them fight in April 2021 and that he “sponsored and exhibited, and aided and abetted sponsoring and exhibiting, at least one rooster in a fight against another rooster” in March 2022, according to the Rhode Island US Attorney’s Office.
Six arrested in cockfighting operation based out of Providence home, prosecutors say
Lozada faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 29, records show.
Lozada is one of six men indicted by a federal grand jury in September over the alleged operation, which hosted a series of fights inside a Providence home in 2022.
Miguel Delgado, 73, allegedly hosted fights — commonly known as “derbies” — at his Providence residence on Feb. 25 and March 6, 2022, according to the indictment.
“Cockfighting is a contest in which a person attaches a knife, gaff or other sharp instrument to the leg of a ‘gamecock’ or rooster and then places the bird a few inches away from a similarly armed rooster,” prosecutors said. “This results in a fight during which the roosters flap their wings and jump while stabbing each other with the weapons that are fastened to their legs.”
The fight ends when one rooster is dead or refuses to continue to fight, and often, one or both roosters die afterward, officials said.
Material from a previous Globe story was used in this report.
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