Overview
- Johnson was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison on Sept. 10, 2026, and ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay a $30,000 fine.
- A federal jury convicted him in August 2025 on six felony counts for possessing, selling, transporting, or delivering dogs for use in fighting, and acquitted him on 17 other counts.
- Authorities seized 190 dogs from Johnson’s kennels in 2024, a Department of Justice statement said was the largest number taken from one person in a federal dogfighting investigation.
- Prosecutors said Johnson ran Mal Kant Kennels as a commercial enterprise that bred and marketed ‘champion’ bloodlines, sold stud rights and offspring nationwide, and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
- Defense lawyers asked for probation and cited a 2004 state dogfighting plea plus Johnson’s diagnoses of severe dementia, Parkinson’s disease and past traumatic brain injuries, and they said an appeal may be considered.