Lee County cockfighting: 136 birds removed, two arrested

The Lee County Sheriff's Office says deputies broke up two separate cockfighting operations over the weekend, one found by accident while crews worked a mobile home fire on Westwood Acres Road and the other in a Lehigh Acres backyard, and that 136 birds were removed and two men were arrested

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 24, 2026

A close-up of a speckled gold and black rooster standing on bare gravelly ground in a farmyard, with a second bird out of focus behind it and a metal water tap at the left edge. There is no person, no building, no vehicle, no sign, no lettering and no marking of any kind anywhere in the frame. Stock photograph, not a photograph of this event.

Stock photo

Stock photo. Not the actual scene. Photo: DΛVΞ GΛRCIΛ / Pexels

What it changes

For most people in Lee County this changes nothing about the day, and that is worth saying plainly, because two arrests announced together can read as something larger than it is. Both operations are described by the Sheriff's Office as already broken up. There is no search under way that the agency has described, no address anybody is being asked to avoid, and nothing here touches roads, power or water. What it does tell you is what the county's animal cruelty enforcement actually looks like from the inside, and the first case is the more instructive of the two. Deputies were not looking for a fighting ring on Westwood Acres Road on Friday. They were at a mobile home that was fully alight, and the agency says the discovery came while the property was being cleared, which is the routine sweep after a structure fire. That is how a fair share of these cases surface, as a by product of some other emergency, and it is part of why the counts in them tend to be large: the birds are only found once somebody with a lawful reason to be there walks the back of the lot. The second case, on Nashville Avenue S in Lehigh Acres on Sunday, came the ordinary way, through an Animal Control Officer who was already looking. On the law, the charge both men face is not a minor one but it is also not the most serious grade Florida has. Section 828.122 of the Florida Statutes makes it a felony of the third degree to breed, train, own, possess or use an animal for the purpose of fighting or baiting, and it separately makes it the same offence to own, possess or sell the equipment for it, which is why an inventory of gloves, sparring muffs, syringes and a dummy bird matters to a prosecutor as much as the birds do. The statute defines animal fighting to reach fighting between roosters, so poultry is squarely inside it. All of the above about conduct is what the Lee County Sheriff's Office says. Raul Cartaya Ramos and Yelandis Rodriguez Hernandez have each been arrested and charged. Neither has been tried, neither has entered a plea on this record, and both are presumed innocent. This desk has not read a booking record for either man, because the county arrest search would not open from here, so the arrests stand as the agency announced them. The one open question the agency did not answer is what happens to the 136 birds, and the honest answer is that neither the release nor the outlet says. The statute is the only guide, and it points at the court rather than at the Sheriff: subsection (5) says that where a court finds probable cause it shall order the animals and the equipment seized, and shall provide for their appropriate and humane care or disposition. Those are the two words the law leaves standing next to each other, and in bird cases of this size they very often do not mean the same thing. Anyone who wants to know which it was here will have to follow the case, not the press release.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office says deputies uncovered and dismantled two separate cockfighting operations over the weekend, in two unrelated incidents two days apart, and that two men were arrested on the same animal cruelty charge.

The first was found by accident. According to the agency, deputies responded on Friday to a home on Westwood Acres Road for a mobile home trailer that was fully engulfed. While clearing the property they say they found multiple roosters, a fighting ring, and evidence of a cockfighting operation. A search warrant followed, and the agency says it turned up boxing gloves, B12 injections and several injured roosters. Approximately 83 birds were removed from the scene. The owner, Raul Cartaya Ramos, was arrested on a charge of animal cruelty, sell use or possess animals to fight or bait.

The second came on Sunday, in what the Sheriff's Office describes as an unrelated incident. Deputies were called to assist an Animal Control Officer after a possible cockfighting ring was found in the backyard of a home on Nashville Avenue S in Lehigh Acres. The agency says deputies found multiple injured roosters housed in separate enclosures, along with evidence of a training area, sparring muffs, a dummy chicken and used syringes. Fifty three birds were removed from the home. The homeowner, Yelandis Rodriguez Hernandez, was charged with the same offence.

"There is no place for animal cruelty in Lee County, and we will not tolerate the abuse and exploitation of animals for the purpose of cockfighting," Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in the announcement. "These operations are not only cruel, but they put animals through unimaginable suffering."

All of that is the Sheriff's Office account. Both men have been arrested and charged. Neither has been tried, no plea by either is on the public record, and both are presumed innocent. Nothing here is a finding that either man did what the agency says he did. This desk has not read a booking record for either arrest, because the county arrest search would not open from here, so the arrests are reported as the agency announced them.

The charge is a third degree felony, and section 828.122 of the Florida Statutes is why. Subsection (3) makes it an offence to bait, breed, train, transport, sell, own, possess or use any wild or domestic animal for the purpose of animal fighting or baiting, and it makes it a separate offence to own, possess or sell equipment for use in that activity. The section defines animal fighting to include fighting between roosters or other birds, so poultry is inside the statute rather than at the edge of it.

Neither the Sheriff's Office nor WINK News, which reported the arrests, says what will happen to the 136 birds. The statute leaves that to a judge. Subsection (5) provides that where a court finds probable cause that the section has been violated, it shall order the seizure of the animals and the equipment used, and shall provide for the appropriate and humane care or disposition of the animals.

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