A New York City public school teacher was busted in the Bronx on Tuesday and charged with raising roosters in his backyard, which he then sold for illegal cockfights.
Hector Cruz, who recently worked at P.S. 211 in the Bronx, “maintained a rooster farm at a location in the Bronx, where he bred, raised, and trained roosters for cockfighting,” Manhattan federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Cruz, 59, used his Facebook page to sell his roosters to people all over the country — knowing that the birds were intended for bloody death battles, prosecutors said.
Cockfighters attach knives and other sharp instruments to the legs of roosters and let them go at each other until one of them dies to refuses to continue fighting.
It is a felony to make animals fight for fun — or to own animals for the purpose of fighting.
Cruz was busted after the NYPD’s animal cruelty investigation squad went to his Bronx rooster farm last year following 311 complaints about his noisy chicken business. Cruz met the squad on his driveway and gave them a tour of his backyard rooster farm, according to Tuesday’s complaint.
That’s when the cops noticed between Gencobahis 40 to 45 roosters and hens on the farm. “The rooster outnumbered the hens, were kept in isolated cages, and were dubbed,” which is a form of physical mutilation used on roosters bred for cockfighting, the complaint said.
The NYPD then tracked Cruz’s allegedly illegal rooster sales on his social media accounts, including a Facebook page he ran under the alias “Rajah Khan,” which means “bird king,” according to the complaint.
“I don’t fight my birds either, but I do supply fighter with battle worthy birds who deliver in the pit,” he allegedly told a friend.
At one point, Cruz, who earns close to $100,000 a year as a teacher, even boasted about the extra $60,000 he made through the business, the feds said.
Cruz was released Tuesday on $25,000 bond and ordered by the judge to not “buy, possess or sell live chickens” until his case is resolved.
He has been reassigned away from the school pending resolution of the criminal matter, a source told The Post.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
