Justin Humphrey & Anthony DeVore defeated in primaries; Julius Deane Griffin sent to prison.
Streak in dogfighting lingo makes law & order a “Grand Champion.”
ATOKA & TULSA, Oklahoma––If the Oklahoma Republican primaries had been a cockfighting derby, ten-year Oklahoma District 19 incumbent Justin Humphrey, a longtime proponent of re-legalizing cockfighting––and of selling licenses to hunt the mythical Sasquatch––would have been dead in a puddle of blood, feathers, and sawdust on June 16, 2026.
Term-limited out of the Oklahoma statehouse, Humphrey sought a promotion to lieutenant governor, but attracted only 12.6% of the vote from his own political party.
What will Humphrey do next?
With five years to go before full eligibility to draw Social Security, Humphrey, 60, may return to one of his previous occupations, including 20 years as a prison guard, a stint supervising probation for drug offenders, serving as a “worship leader” at the Church of the Rock in Lane, Oklahoma, and shoveling manure on a cattle ranch that never appears to have been his full-time job.
Former Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission president Anthony DeVore, if the Oklahoma Republican primaries had been a cockfighting derby, would have been removed from the center ring to a “drag pit” until suffering terminal pecker dysfunctionality in an August 25, 2026 runoff in the race to succeed Humphrey as District 19 state representative.
DeVore managed to draw 1,313 votes, 37% of the total, losing “by a lopsided two-to-one margin” to Michael Brittingham, a 15-year Pushmataha County commissioner, and “an opponent of animal fighting,” mentioned Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle in his wrap-up of the outcome.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Hard times for DeVore
DeVore, 54, has had a difficult 12 months.
Most recently, DeVore on April 6, 2026 was convicted of being a spectator, a misdemeanor, at a June 8, 2024 cockfight illegally held on the Cherokee Nation.
The case originated from undercover and drone video obtained by Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect & Kindness.
The outcome was that district judge Brendon Bridges sentenced DeVore to perform 20 hours of unpaid community service, fined him $100, and suspended a six-month jail term, conditional on good behavior.
(See Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission cofounder Anthony Devore convicted.)
(Animal Wellness Action photo)
“Number pinned to his back”
That humiliation came eight months after the Oklahoma State Ethics Commission ordered the the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission, never actually “commissioned” by anyone, and never any sort of official Oklahoma state-sanctioned entity, “to pay $10,000 and dissolve,” for “violating state rules governing contributions,” reported Emma Murphy for Oklahoma Voice on September 17, 2025.
(See OK Gamefowl Commission dissolved, top cock Devore criminally charged.)
When photographed at the cockfight, blogged Pacelle, DeVore “had a number pinned to his back — a telltale marker that he had brought birds from his cockfighting farm to participate in lethal combat.
“Cockfighting complex”
“DeVore, a pro-cockfighting lobbyist,” Pacelle wrote, “had long assured lawmakers at the state capitol he was no cockfighter but merely a criminal justice reform advocate who thought the penalties for illegal animal fighting were too stiff,” the same line asserted for years by Humphrey.
“It was a very thinly veiled lie. We knew it all along,” said Pacelle.
“DeVore has long operated a major cockfighting complex in Bryan County, Oklahoma,” Pacelle charged, along with “bilking of customers of his solar energy company and declaring bankruptcy.”
DeVore, while claiming a master’s degree in criminal justice and a doctorate in education, and having also claimed to be “a career college president,” previously ran an Ardmore solar energy contracting business called Texoma Solar Solutions.
“Business is no longer in business”
“According to information in BBB files, this business is no longer in business,” says the Better Business Bureau report on Texoma Solar Solutions.
“BBB files indicate that this business has a pattern of complaints concerning customer service and repair issues,” the report continues, including 34 separate sets of unresolved consumer grievances.
“On April 3, 2023,” the report mentions, “the Better Business Bureau submitted a written request to the business encouraging them to address the pattern of complaints. The BBB is awaiting a response from the business.”
“Failed to disclose his assets accurately”
More than three years later the Better Business Bureau is apparently still waiting.
The Better Business Bureau page on Texoma Solar Solutions mentions that Devore also appears to have done business as Sunset Solar & Electric Power, LLC.
Updated Derrick James for the Oklahoma news website Nondoc.com on April 21, 2026, “Court records show DeVore and/or his business, Texoma Solar Solutions, were named as defendants in suits in [six counties].
“DeVore filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma,” but “Court records show DeVore’s bankruptcy case remains open after a U.S. trustee sought to deny its discharge, claiming DeVore failed to disclose his assets accurately,” James reported.
(Homeland Security Investigations photo)
Julius Deane Griffin
“On the same day as DeVore’s ballot-box trouncing,” exulted Pacelle, “a federal judge sentenced repeat Tulsa dogfighter Julius Deane Griffin to 17 1/2 years in federal prison.
“Griffin had already been convicted of dogfighting in 2005 in connection with a major Oklahoma case involving more than 40 dogs,” Pacelle recalled.
“Not having learned his lesson, he was back at it.
“More than two decades later, he got crosswise with federal authorities. At his northwest Tulsa residence, they found 17 live pit bull-type dogs and one dead dog, along with dogfighting trophies, treadmills, kennels, digital scales, injectable steroids, syringes, dog medications, illegal firearms, and more than $16,000 in cash,” Pacelle summarized.
Detailed ANIMALS 24-7 at the time, “A week after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma on April 24, 2025 announced new charges against previously convicted dogfighter Julius Deane Griffin, 43,” who is now 44, “investigators are still trying to unravel dogfighting connections apparently extending from coast to coast.
(Homeland Security Investigations photo)
Gang connections
“Griffin is identified as a member of the 107 Hoover Crips, a drug-dealing African-American street gang reportedly begun as the Hoover Groovers more than fifty years ago in Los Angeles, now active as far away as New Jersey.
“The Tulsa area 107 Hoover Crips were in 2013 named by the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force for involvement in “drug dealing, extortion, and violence, including shootings.”
(See Dogfighting gang member busted again, another sentenced, 11 nabbed in NC.)
Griffin, announced the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma on August 26, 2026, “was sentenced for six counts related to running a dog fighting venture in his home and for beating his then-girlfriend with a golf club, announced U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Nassar.
(Homeland Security Investigations photo)
Investigated for drug activities
“U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office media release explained, sentenced Griffin for five counts of possession of a dog for an animal fighting venture; causing an individual under the age of 16 to attend an animal fighting venture; assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm in Indian Country; and tampering with evidence by corrupt persuasion.
“Griffin was ordered to serve 210 months imprisonment,” amounting to seventeen years, six months, “followed by three years of supervised release.”
The case developed, U.S. Attorney’s Office media release recounted, when “In 2024, law enforcement began investigating Griffin for drug activities. When agents obtained a search warrant on Griffin’s social media account, they discovered that he was fighting dogs under the name West Camp.
Pit bulls starved in the dark
“Court documents show that Griffin admitted to possessing 18 dogs in his backyard and basement of his house located in Tulsa,” the media release continued.
“During sentencing, the prosecutor stated that Griffin would take a dog into his basement for ‘training.’ While in the dark basement, the dog would be starved and run on a treadmill several times to prepare for an upcoming fight.
“Griffin admitted to traveling between Oklahoma and Kansas to fight the dogs and to buying or selling dogs in Oklahoma, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged.
“During one of his dog fights, Griffin admitted he allowed two children, ages 4 and 2, to watch.”
Golfing in gangland
After Griffin was arrested in April 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office media release added, he “contacted a friend,” whom Griffin directed “to log in to his accounts and delete data from his cloud-based devices,” concealing and deleting “videos, conversations, and pictures related to his animal-fighting venture.”
Earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, “Griffin admitted to assaulting the woman he was dating at that time. He struck her several times with a golf club. The assault left the victim with a fractured wrist, ankle swelling, arm and knee lacerations, as well as rib pain.”
Concluded the U.S. Attorney’s Office media release, “Court records show that Griffin was previously convicted of more than 21 crimes,” including his 2005 dogfighting conviction, for which he “was sentenced to five years and served approximately two years.”
(Beth Clifton photo/collage)
Griffin “has also previously been convicted of six assault and domestic assault-related crimes since 2009,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
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Currently revisiting NOP’S TRIALS by Donald McCaig, a novel some may be familiar with. Though mainly about the world of stockdogs, it also delves into the pits of despair including dogfighting and class-B bunchers selling random-source/stolen dogs to pharmaceutical labs.
Thanking you for the update. Cruelty and criminality involving dogs and other animals may be largely overlooked and even participated in by those tasked with preventing these egregious offenses, but, as with cruelty and criminality against humans, ignoring it gives tacit approval to and guarantees continuation of it. Laws are only as good as their application; and the Good Ol’ Boy network is nationwide,
Defeating DeVore in what they have long called the nation’s cockfighting stronghold and now having an anti-cockfighter in that seat is an awfully nice turnaround.
Happily this is a World of Hurt, Pain and Cruelty with which I have no familiarity and zero symapthy. Those persons who find their sick pleasure in harming or killing sentient animals are totally beyond my ken and to learn that some few are finally getting their just deserts is a relief and a good.
I am grateful to you both, Mr. Pacelle, and his two worthy groups and others who have fought for decades to bring these brutal troublemakers to face a modicum of justice.
Thank you for staying on their cases.