Co-defendants point their fingers at Vick

Michael Vick stands alone.

His last two co-defendants pleaded guilty to dogfighting charges Friday, pointing the finger at the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and saying he not only bankrolled the venture but helped execute dogs that didn’t perform well.

In separate hearings Friday morning in Richmond, Va., Quanis Phillips of Atlanta and Purnell Peace of Virginia Beach, Va., entered plea agreements and agreed to testify against Vick, who last month pleaded not guilty and whose trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 26. Tony Taylor, another co-defendant, changed his plea to guilty last month and also agreed to testify against Vick.

Federal prosecutors want Vick to accept a plea deal that reportedly would require him to spend at least a year in prison. That would entail him pleading guilty to the same charges that Peace and Phillips did: conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and conspiracy to sponsor a dog in an animal-fighting venture.

As part of his agreement, Peace signed a statement saying Vick helped execute about eight dogs that didn’t perform well in testing. According to the indictment, the methods of killing included hanging, drowning and electrocution.

If a deal with Vick is not reached, prosecutors are expected to file a new indictment as early as next week, one that probably would include more serious charges.

A member of Vick’s five-lawyer defense team, Danny Meacham, told Atlanta radio station V-103 on Friday afternoon that, “I’m under the impression that the government wants a plea to be done, if at all, by the end of this week, but there is no plea at this point.”

The NFL, which is conducting its own investigation of Vick, has instructed him not to report to training camp and has not indicated when he might be able to resume his career, if at all. Before an exhibition game in Buffalo on Friday night, Falcons owner Arthur Blank said the latest plea agreements indicated Vick lied to him and other league officials.

“What’s suggested in those statements of fact don’t match up with what the league was told, even our organization and certainly not what was said to the commissioner,” Blank told the Associated Press.

Blank added: “It’s sad that those allegations exist and now they are confirmed by others. It’s sad that Michael has put himself into that kind of situation. It’s his responsibility for putting himself into that situation.”

Blank’s comments echoed those of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who said Vick denied any connection to dogfighting when the two spoke in April.

“I was very direct with him on whether he was involved with it, and he denied any involvement in it and in fact he said he was a dog lover,” Goodell said in Friday’s edition of USA Today. “That’s why he had so many dogs.”

Goodell says he will await the completion of a league investigation headed by Eric Holder, the former No. 2 lawyer in the Department of Justice, before making a decision about Vick’s future with the NFL. The commissioner indicated he was particularly troubled by the gambling allegations.

“There are areas we would be less flexible with, and gambling is one of them,” he told the newspaper. “There may be other facts that he doesn’t address in the plea that may still be of concern to us that we would want to pursue . . . Until we know what he pleas to, we’d have to see.”

A source who has worked closely with Goodell on conduct issues says the league is more disturbed about the gambling allegations than most people believe.

“If anybody underestimates the significance of the gambling, just think about what [NBA Commissioner] David Stern wishes he could have done had he known about Tim Donaghy,” the referee at the center of a betting scandal. “That has to be Roger’s mind-set. The challenge is to stop these gambling issues before they become a problem.

“This is not a case where Vick was gambling in a casino. This is a case where he was the casino.”

--

sam.farmer@latimes.com