USC assistant football coach Todd McNair said Wednesday that reports detailing his two 1990s convictions for mistreating dogs did not "accurately portray" what actually happened.
"I understand the interest about the thing in light of all that's gone on in Virginia with the [Michael] Vick case and everything," he said in an interview outside USC's Heritage Hall. "But my case was totally different from that. . . . I was cited for neglect. I wasn't convicted for abuse."
McNair, who is about to begin his fourth season as the Trojans' running backs coach, was charged with cruelty to animals, failure to obtain licenses and keeping animals for the purpose of fighting in March 1996 after authorities found more than 20 pit pulls on property he owned in East Greenwich, N.J.
He was also charged with animal neglect in July 1993.
McNair, 42, said both cases stemmed from his failed attempts at dog breeding.
"I had a number of different breeds at different points of time over a couple years," he said. "I realized I got in over my head. I wasn't able to maintain it properly and it cost me."
Law enforcement authorities who investigated the 1996 case paint a different picture. They say "all indications" showed the former NFL running back was involved in pit bull fighting.
"We didn't witness a dogfight taking place, but . . . that's what the dogs were used for," said East Greenwich Township Police Det.-Sgt. Charles Barone. "There was a treadmill used for [dog] training, and we found the dogs in an unsheltered, wooded area far from the highway, where they were held down by [automobile towing] chains connected to large tire rims. It was deplorable."
Gloucester County Judge J.R. Powell said in court that insufficient evidence kept him from convicting McNair of dogfighting. However, prosecutors won misdemeanor convictions against McNair on 17 counts of animal cruelty and failure to license dogs.
McNair was fined more than $4,900 and ordered to fulfill community service obligations, according to a local newspaper report. Court authorities said Wednesday that the official municipal court decision of the case has probably been destroyed.
McNair, a former Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Oilers running back, said he did not tell USC officials about his convictions when he was hired onto the football staff in 2004 because he "had no reason to think it would ever come up. I didn't look at it as I did a crime and was convicted anyway. I was exonerated from all the stuff."
