Lockport Township couple pleads guilty in drug dealing, dog fighting case

JOLIET – A Lockport Township man pleaded guilty Wednesday to drug dealing and dog fighting.

Vanessa S. Jones, 29, and Solomon Carson, 33, appeared consecutively before Judge Edward Burmila. On Feb. 28, 2014, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided their house in the 2200 block of Fairmont Avenue and found more than seven grams of heroin and packaged cocaine, Assistant Will County State’s Attorney Thomas Bahar told Burmila.

“As officers continued to search they found four pit bulls being held in an area with heavy chains. There was no food or water ... a large amount of feces. The dogs had scrapes and injuries consistent with dog fighting, and their rib cages and spines were showing through their fur,” Bahar said.

Agents also found a dog treadmill and a book on raising fighting dogs in the basement, Bahar said.

Carson was arrested that day on charges of delivery of drugs, dog fighting and animal cruelty.

Jones was arraigned on similar charges three months later, but they were dismissed Wednesday when she pleaded guilty to one count of cruel treatment of animals and was sentenced to 18 months of nonreporting probation.

Carson was sentenced to 12 years in prison on the drug delivery charge. He also pleaded guilty to three counts of dog fighting and received a three-year sentence that will be served concurrently.

After Carson’s arrest, fingerprint comparison revealed he served a prison sentence in Mississippi under the name “Barry Taylor” after being convicted of delivery of cocaine and aggravated assault in the late 1990s.

He also is wanted in Minneapolis, for a delivery of cocaine case from 2004, where he used the alias “Larenta Parks,” according to Bahar.