Canadian guilty in cockfighting case

A Canadian man was convicted Friday in Manhattan Federal Court of running an international cockfighting business in which he raised more than 100 game birds to compete in the brutal blood sport.

Thomas Carrano, 44, of Ontario, the former president of the New York chapter of the United Gamefowl Breeders Association, claimed that he was just a chicken fancier who believed in the preservation of the birds.

A jury, however, found him guilty of raising, transporting and selling roosters for the purpose of fighting, after a five-day trial.

Last May, authorities raided his Ontario farm and found more cockfighting paraphernalia along with 104 chickens, 31 of them roosters, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. Many of the birds had been mutilated for cockfighting.

Ron Porter, the treasurer of the New York chapter of the United Gamefowl Breeders Association, said the chickens were better off with Carrano than when they were confiscated by the feds.

“When they took Tommy's chickens, they treated them pisspoorly,” Porter told the Daily News. “They mistreated them.”

He said that the birds were put in cages next to each other where their natural territorial instincts set in, prompting them to spar.

“They have an instinct to be a little nasty,” Porter said. “Nobody can make them fight, they have an instinct that way.”

Carrano's lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.