While his wife took in children for day-care, authorities believe a Chicago-area man was using their house as part of an illegal dogfighting ring.

Charles Sutton, 42, of the Chicago suburb of Maywood, faces charges of felony dogfighting. The day care operated by his wife was shut down. She was not arrested.

In a statement to the press, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said his deputies found a dog with its eye ripped out, another with a leg twisted backward and a third with its lower extremities nearly ripped from its body when they raided the house involved in the ring Tuesday.

"Kids were playing on a swing set just 10 feet away from a vicious fighting dog and blood-stained floors," the sheriff said in his statement. "The very equipment used to train these dogs was being kept in the garage right behind the house."

Deputies also raided three other houses in the area, and Dart said they came back with equally horrifying stories. However, to operate a dogfighting operation in the same home as a day care struck the sheriff as particularly vile.

"To be engaged in this sort of activity is disturbing enough, but to take a chance with anyone's children is reprehensible," he said.

Sutton's wife told authorities she was not involved in the dog fighting operation and kept children away from the dogs and the equipment used to train them.

When deputies arrived at the Suttons' home, there were 10 children on the premises as well as an exceptionally aggressive pit bull in the garage, Dart said. In addition to blood on the floor, they also allegedly found syringes, drugs, bite sticks and harnesses used in dogfighting.

Deputies said many of the dogs used in the operation were kept in a nearby house, allegedly operated by Martez Anderson. The 38-year-old ex-convict allegedly charged $60 per month for dogs to be kept at his home, Dart said. He was cited during Tuesday's raid for being a felon in possession of an unspayed or unneutered dog.

Earlier this year, Dart advocated a new law which requires cross-reporting between the Illinois Department of Children and Family services and any animal investigators.

The dogs rescued during Tuesday's raid are now with the Animal Welfare League in Chicago Ridge.

"What was done to these dogs is inexcusable," Dart said in his prepared remarks. "This was done in the name of gambling and greed. and no area seems immune from its influence. We see it in rural farm areas and inner cities.

"Unfortunately, we're also seeing more and more children exposed to this kind of lifestyle."

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