In August last year black belt former mma fighter Dan Swift was busted for running a dog fighting ring. Swift was found guilty of three felony counts of animal fighting, a misdemeanor count of possession of animal fighting paraphernalia, a misdemeanor count of possession of an instrument of crime, and seven out of fourteen summary counts of cruelty to animals.

Swift was a member of Jorge Gurgel SAS Team and a black belt under Johnatan Stutzman. This isn’t his first newsworthy event in his black belt tenure, about a year prior to arrest he made a video that explained why he believed that Chris Weidman shouldn’t be fighting and has less than a blue belt level in jiu jitsu given his inability to shake Rockhold from the mount position.

He’s since been expelled:

“As a Jorge Gurgel and SAS Team black belt, and as someone that knows Dan, if this is true then I will utterly renounce Dan. I’ve known Dan for a long time (albeit not closely) and I’ve always known he had a screw loose (Weidman situation for example) but this is completely beyond the realm of acceptable behavior and SAS TEAM USA and Jorge Gurgel do not approve, condone or accept this type of behavior.

UPDATE: Dan Swift has been unilaterally expelled from SAS TEAM USA.”

After just 2 hours of jury deliberation he’s been convicted:

Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri credited those who assisted the prosecution team, with helping to win this case according to news sources.

“The jury has told us that the computer forensics, and Facebook postings, and things like that nature were very important to them in their verdict. Credit to so many people for putting this case together,” said Daneri. “This is a huge victory, not only for the animals that we have at the shelter in this case, but for the Erie community, and I think this it’s a total step forward…We, today as a community, were a voice for these defenseless animals. So I really think they got the justice they deserved,” said Nicole Bawol, Executive Director for the Humane Society of Northwestern Pennsylvania.