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April
25, 2007
A
member of Orange County's committee on dog tethering has resigned
in the wake of an Indy investigation questioning her residency and
her ties to dog fighting.
A
longtime breeder of pit bulls who, according to court documents,
lives in Pennsylvania, Alane Koki submitted her resignation Monday,
an hour before a public hearing about the practice of chaining or
tying dogs drew about 50 people.
"The
story of unfounded allegations published in the Independent Weekly
has elicited a series of death threats to myself and family,"
Koki wrote to county officials. "I have been advised to relinquish
my seat on the committee to ensure my safety."
Koki
applied to serve as the committee's animal health/wellness expert
in October 2006, listing a Hillsborough address, her zoology degrees
and her profession as a medical researcher but omitting her long
history as a pit bull breeder in Missouri and Pennsylvania. Court
records show Koki was residing in her Mohrsville, Pa., home as of
mid-December, when she petitioned the court to allow her to remain
there, in part because she had nowhere else to house her 30 dogs.
The
April 11 article detailed Koki's ties to dog fighting, including
a recorded phone call between her and a federal defendant in Wisconsin
(see "Member of Orange County's chained-dog study panel has
ties to dog-fighting"). It also chronicled her ties to Tom
Garner, a Hillsborough breeder who has been convicted of dog fighting.
Garner, who also applied but was not appointed to a seat on the
citizens' committee, breeds pit bulls whose bloodlines show up in
Koki's dogs' genealogy dating back at least seven years. Though
he denied knowing her prior to her service on the committee, a 2003
issue of his dog-fighting magazine, The Journal, featured a picture
of Koki and gory details of fights involving dogs from her Thundermaker
Bulldogs kennel.
Copyright
2007 The Independent Weekly
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