Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Isaiah Buggs turned himself into the Tuscaloosa County Jail on Thursday after allegedly abusing two dogs.
A Tuscaloosa Police Department spokesperson confirmed to WIAT in Birmingham, Alabama, that Buggs surrendered in jail on Thursday, a day after two misdemeanor warrants were filed against him.
Buggs was booked and released on $600 bail and will face a court hearing on June 13. He refused a reporter’s question as he left prison and got into a truck.
According to court documents, the Tuscaloosa Police Department received a report that two dogs had been left on the back porch of a home rented by Bugs. Officers and animal control found a gray and white pit bull and a black rottweiler on a screened back porch with no access to food or water.
Both dogs appeared to be malnourished and neglected, and the residence appeared to be abandoned. Witnesses told police that Bugs had recently moved out of the home. Both dogs were seized, and the bull was eventually euthanized.
Baggs’ agent, Trey Robinson, on Wednesday denied the accusations and claimed his client is the victim of an ongoing “campaign of vandalism” to force the hookah lounge he owns in Tuscaloosa.
“Under no circumstances does Mr. Bugs condone the mistreatment of any animal. The dogs in question do not belong to him, and he was not aware that they remained on the property in question,” Robinson said in a statement.
Robinson said in his statement that Bugs was arrested at his hookah lounge on misdemeanor charges “on two separate occasions over the past two months, but each time no public record of these arrests has been prepared.” Robinson added that the city was using the allegations against Baggs “as leverage” to get him to give up his business license.
Buggs, 27, played three seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and two with the Detroit Lions before joining the Chiefs in January as a practice squad player. The Chiefs re-signed Buggs to a futures contract in February.
Information from ESPN’s Adam Teicher was used in this report.
