A 34-year-old Auburn man pleaded not guilty Jan. 13 at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center i Kent to charges of animal fighting in connection with a Dec. 11 incident at property he rents in the 12700 block of Southeast Kent-Kangley Road in Kent.

According to charging papers filed Dec. 31, Lazaro Murillo-Flores allegedly bred, kept and sold roosters to parties in Mexico intending to use the birds for fighting.

Kent Police received a report from a nearby business owner that about 3 p.m. each day, the sound of fighting chickens and cheering and chanting in Spanish could be heard from a boarded compound.

According to court documents, officers found pens holding about 50 roosters and hens. Animal Control officers arrived and counted 31 roosters that had had their leg spurs and combs surgically removed. The removal of the combs lowers the risk of injury and sight impairment during a fight, according to court documents. The leg spurs are trimmed to shorten the natural leg spur to attach sharp blades used to inflict injury on or death to another bird during a fight.

According to court documents, Murillo-Flores denied fighting the roosters, telling officers instead that he raises and sells the roosters and hens in Mexico for food. Questioned further, according to court documents, he said he ships the roosters to Mexico, where they are used for cockfighting. According to court documents, he explained that he knew it was illegal in the United States to cockfight, and that is why he sends the birds to Mexico, where it is legal.

In unrelated cases, a 37-year-old Kent man and three other men also pleaded not guilty Jan. 13 in Kent to animal fighting in connection with reported illegal cockfighting operations in Kent and Auburn.

Prosecutors claim that on or about Nov. 12, Antonio Montiel Flores of Kent did knowingly own, possess, keep, breed, train, buy, sell, advertise or offer for sale a rooster with the intent that the rooster should be engaged in a fighting exhibition with another rooster, according to charging papers.

Willie Manuel Castro, 66, of Enumclaw, and Godofredo J. Ramac, 74, of Seabeck, also pleaded not guilty Jan. 13 in connection with an Aug. 15 incident, when they were reportedly among about a dozen men at a temporary cockfighting arena set up at the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation. Prosecutors filed the charges against the three men Dec. 31.