WILKESBORO -- Wilkes County Animal Control destroyed 146 pit bulls yesterday, following a judge's order.
The dogs were associated with Wildside Kennels, whose owner, Ed Faron, 61, was convicted last week of 14 felony counts of dog fighting.
Authorities seized 127 of the dogs in a raid on Faron's property on Dec. 10, 2008. The rest of the dogs were born after the raid. The county had acknowledged that some litters had been born, but yesterday was the first time that the county released the actual number of dogs involved.
According to a ruling Monday by Judge Ed Wilson Jr. of Superior Court, state law defines dogs as dangerous if they are involved in a dog-fighting operation, and a county ordinance requires that dangerous dogs be destroyed.
The raid was the result of a three-year investigation by the Humane Society of the United States, in cooperation with Wilkes County Animal Control and the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office. Representatives of the Humane Society told the judge that the dogs should be destroyed, because they had been bred for generations to be aggressive.
A number of animal-rescue groups had offered to place the dogs, but none of their representatives were at Monday's hearing when the judge was considering what should happen to the dogs.
Wilkes man makes Alford plea to indecent-liberties counts
WILKESBORO – A Wilkes County man whose jury trial on first-degree rape of a child was under way entered a plea deal yesterday morning in Wilkes Superior Court to two counts of indecent liberties with a minor.
Michael Leon Johnson, 43, entered an Alford plea to the charges, which means he agreed to be sentenced while not admitting guilt.
Judge Ed Wilson Jr sentenced Johnson to 42-52 months in prison, the maximum allowed. The sentence consists of prison time of 21 to 26 months on each of the two counts, with one sentence to start at the conclusion of the other.
Assistant District Attorney Leigh Bricker said in court that Johnson molested the girl starting when she was 11 years old and ending when she was 14.
Bricker said that the prosecution agreed to the plea so the girl would not have to testify.
Johnson had been convicted of indecent liberty with a child in 1991.
Wilson also ordered that Johnson be monitored the rest of his life.
Man sentenced to prison after Alford plea in sex case
A Winston-Salem man was sentenced Monday to 66 to 89 months in prison after he entered an Alford plea to charges that he had sex with a child.
Felix Soriano, 29, was sentenced in Forsyth Superior Court as part of a plea deal with prosecutor Pansy Glanton in which two charges of first-degree rape and a charge of first-degree sex offense were all dropped and replaced with the same counts of second-degree rape and second-degree sex offense.
Those charges, and three counts of indecent liberties, were counted as one rape charge for purposes of sentencing, as part of the agreement.
By entering an Alford plea, Soriano agreed to be sentenced while not admitting guilt.
Soriano was accused of sex acts in three incidents from 2004 to 2006. The girl who accused him was 10 at the time of the first alleged incident.
Among the difficulties for prosecutors was that the girl had made an allegation of sexual abuse in 2001 against a couple that was considering adopting her, but a social-services agency could not substantiate that allegation, said David Botchin, Soriano's attorney.
Judge Lindsay R. Davis Jr. also sentenced Soriano to lifetime monitoring by satellite under North Carolina's sex-offender law.
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