Taylor to have plea agreement hearing on Monday Posted: Friday July 27, 2007 9:02PM; Updated: Friday July 27, 2007 9:45PM RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- One of Michael Vick's co-defendants doesn't want to wait for trial. Instead, a plea agreement hearing has been scheduled for Tony Taylor at 9 a.m. Monday in the federal dogfighting conspiracy case. Taylor's hearing was added to U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson's docket Friday, a day after he and the other three defendants pleaded not guilty before the same judge. Vick and the others still are scheduled for trial Nov. 26. Prosecutors claim Taylor, 34, found the Surry County property purchased by Vick and used it as the site of "Bad Newz Kennels," a dogfighting enterprise. The Hampton man also allegedly helped purchase pit bulls and killed at least two dogs that fared poorly in test fights.
Perhaps Taylor's impending plea will squelch the annoying Old Media comparisons of the Vick case to that of the innocent Duke lacrosse players wrongly indicted by Prosecutor Mike Nifong last year. A week ago, in probably the most egregious example of Duke-Vick projection, Sports Illustrated writer Peter King appointed himself to be NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's translator: