{"id":686,"date":"2026-10-20T13:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T13:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2026-10-20T13:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T13:03:12","slug":"las-vegas-flamingo-peachy-tourist-guilty-animal-cruelty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=686","title":{"rendered":"DRUNK TOURIST GUILTY OF FLAMINGO-NAPPING! | He said 30 to 40 beers made it a prank. A Las Vegas jury called it animal cruelty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What happens in Vegas does NOT stay in Vegas when you grab the flamingo. A Canadian tourist, <strong>Mitchell Fairbarn<\/strong>, has been found guilty of animal cruelty after taking a Chilean flamingo named <strong>Peachy<\/strong> from its enclosure and bringing it back to his hotel room, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cq398rjewd1jo\">BBC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>It happened in March at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, which has a free walk-through wildlife habitat with a flock of Chilean flamingos. Trial videos showed a smiling Fairbarn carrying the bird <strong>by the neck<\/strong> as he rode a lift up to his room.<\/p>\n<p>His defense? Booze. Fairbarn, 34, testified he\u2019d downed <strong>30 to 40 beers<\/strong> and thought it would be \u201cfunny.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox5vegas.com\/2026\/10\/20\/man-accused-stealing-las-vegas-flamingo-found-guilty\/\">FOX5 Las Vegas<\/a> reported he called it a drunken \u201csilly pranky joke\u201d and denied any intent to hurt or kill the bird. His own lawyer, Josh Tomsheck, didn\u2019t exactly sugarcoat it: \u201cThe truth is, Mitch was drunk. Mitch was stupid. He made bad decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The jury wasn\u2019t laughing. Animal experts testified Peachy had feathers torn out and suffered blood loss. After hearing <strong>14 witnesses<\/strong> and reviewing more than <strong>112 pieces of evidence<\/strong>, jurors took about five hours to convict him on felony and misdemeanour animal abuse charges, the BBC reported. He faces nearly <strong>five years<\/strong> in prison, with sentencing set for <strong>Dec. 1<\/strong>, according to FOX5.<\/p>\n<p>The good news: a state veterinarian said Peachy has largely recovered, though the bird now has a more anxious demeanour around humans. Can you blame it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cq398rjewd1jo\">BBC \u2014 Tourist found guilty after stealing Las Vegas flamingo from enclosure (Oct. 20, 2026)<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox5vegas.com\/2026\/10\/20\/man-accused-stealing-las-vegas-flamingo-found-guilty\/\">FOX5 Las Vegas \u2014 Man accused of stealing Las Vegas flamingo found guilty (Oct. 19, 2026)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He said 30 to 40 beers made it a prank. A Las Vegas jury called it animal cruelty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-vegas-flamingo-guilty-1020.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}