Old Kentucky cockers club raided
BY BILL ESTEP
b e s t e p @ h e r a l d leader.comMay 6, 2014
Three Floyd County residents helped operate one of
the largest, most lucrative
cockfighting rings in the
country, a federal investigator alleged in a sworn statement. Federal authorities
charged
Walter
D a le
Stumbo, 51; his wife Sonya
Stumbo, 51; and his son
Joshua Stumbo, 25, with
conspiring to operate an illegal gambling enterprise and
with illegally conducting
cockfights,
according
to
documents in federal court.
The three allegedly helped
run a cockfighting pit at
McDowell called the Big Blue
Sportsmen's Club, which
featured arena-style seating, a full-service restaurant
and laminated membership
cards.
A federal investigator said
that at various times during
a yearlong undercover investigation, police saw vehicles at Big Blue from states
throughout the Southeast
and as far away as Illinois,
Michigan and Maryland.
Hundreds of people, including children, attended fights
that left bloodied birds dead
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or dying, Stan Wojtkonski,
an investigator for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture,
said in an affidavit.
Sonya Stumbo told one undercover officer the club had
memberships on file for
more than 6,000 people.
The club — which had photos of known police informants posted — scheduled
cockfighting on more than
30 days in the 2013-14 season, including a Kentucky
st