Vick pleads guilty in Sussex Co. court

SUSSEX Co., Va. - Michael Vick pleaded guilty Tuesday morning in Sussex County Circuit Court to a single count of dogfighting.

As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a charge of animal cruelty. Vick was given a suspended three-year sentence, fined $2,500, and ordered to pay court costs -- including the cost of transporting him from Kansas for Tuesday morning's hearing.

"I want to apologize to the court and my family and all the kids out there who looked up to me as a role model," Vick said at the hearing. "I am very remorseful and hope the court and my family accept my apology."

WAVY.com asked Surry County Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald Poindexter why he would have dropped the animal cruelty charge if Vick has admitted he spent years forcing dogs to fight to the death and killed numerous dogs who lost fights.

Poindexter responded, "Because I feel what I did today is approved by more than a majority of people in Surry County and that's a constituency I'm concerned about."

Vick, who arrived in Virginia last Thursday, already is serving a 23-month sentence in Leavenworth, Kansas for a federal dogfighting conviction. He's scheduled for release on July 20, 2009 but now that he has taken care of the state charges Vick is eligible for early release from prison.

He could get out as early as January to serve the remaining six months of his sentence in a half-way house.

Vick arrived at the Sussex County courthouse at about 6:40 a.m, more than two hours before his scheduled appearance.

He was driven into a covered garage at the back by police and was escorted inside wearing a gray suit and shackled at the wrists and ankles. About 20 armed and uniformed police were stationed around and inside the building, where a large crowd of media waited outside.

After the hearing Vick's defense attorneys spoke to reporters.

Attorney Billy Martin said, "Michael has been punished, he has served his time and now he wants to come home to Virginia to his family.   Anytime in prison is hell and Michael knows what he did was wrong and he knows that conduct cost him his job at the time with the NFL and cost him a contract worth multiple millions of dollars and most importantly, it took Michael away from his family."

The plea agreement was reached before a federal report on the case surfaced Friday, including an account from one witness that Vick and two of his co-defendants enjoyed putting family pets into a ring with pit bulls from Bad Newz Kennels and watching the trained fighters injure or kill the pets.

Vick was convicted of the federal charges in August 2007 when he admitted bankrolling a dogfighting operation at a home he owned in rural Surry County. He also admitted to participating in the killing of several underperforming dogs.

Since the conviction, he has landed in bankruptcy court after losing nearly all of his record-breaking $130 million from a 10-year deal he signed with Atlanta in December 2004.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.