SURRY COUNTY, Va — Federal prosecutors say they have evidence — including 17 dog carcasses — that Michael Vick’s rural Surry County property hosted a dogfighting operation called “Bad Newz Kennels” from 2002 to 2007, according to federal court documents filed this week and a source close to the investigation.

Vick, the former Virginia Tech football star and quarterback of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, is not named in the federal papers, but the address of the home he owns, 1915 Moonlight Road, Smithfield, is under investigation for dogfighting and is mentioned throughout.

On Friday, federal investigators, accompanied by the state police and a local sheriff’s deputy, descended on the property for the second time in the past month with a search warrant looking for dog carcasses. In their first search, on June 7, federal investigators found the remains of seven pit bull dogs who were killed by members of “Bad Newz Kennels,” according to the federal complaint filed this week.

Federal agents executed their first warrant after Surry County Prosecutor Gerald Poindexter refused to execute a local search for dog carcasses, citing concerns over wording in a sheriff deputy’s warrant.

Poindexter, who is on vacation in Louisiana, said he was unaware of Friday’s search and was still pursuing what he called a parallel investigation.

In Friday’s search, which lasted at least eight hours and involved a backhoe and a U-Haul truck to collect evidence, investigators removed more than 10 carcasses buried in shallow graves, a source close to the investigation said.

“They found what they were looking for,” he said.

Investigators were digging in an area about 50 yards behind the large, white house on the property. About 15 people could be seen on the property, which included kennels and outbuildings. The expansive property has a metal gate at the entrance and a fence around the perimeter, which obscured the work of investigators. Fifteen vehicles were on the property, including the rental truck and a Virginia State Police evidence collection truck.

Corinne Geller, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police, said state authorities were working with federal investigators in an “assistance capacity.”

The dogfights at the property involved bets that ranged in the thousands of dollars and featured dogs from as far away as Texas and New York, according to the documents filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

Before fights, the participating dogs of the same sex would be weighed and bathed, according to the filings. Opposing dogs would be washed to remove any poison or narcotic placed on the dog’s coat that could affect the other dog’s performance. Sometimes participants would not feed a dog before the fight to “make it more hungry for the other dog,” the documents said.

The fights usually happened late at night or early in the morning, sometimes involved two or three matches and lasted several hours, generally until one dog died or surrendered, the complaint alleges. Sometimes at the end of the fight, the losing dog was drowned, strangled, hanged, shot or electrocuted, the document said.

Vick, a Newport News native, has denied any knowledge of dogfighting at his Surry County property and said he was rarely at the house where his cousin was living when the investigation began. His attorney, Lawrence Woodward Jr., declined to comment Friday.

Vick has said he had no idea the property may have been used in a criminal enterprise and blamed family members for taking advantage of his generosity. He also put the house up for sale and reportedly sold it quickly, although there is no record that the sale has closed.

The federal document that describes “Bad Newz Kennels” was filed in court this week so federal authorities could take custody of the 53 pit bulls seized from the Moonlight Road property by local authorities in late April. The dogs were taken to various animal shelters in the region.

James Knorr, a special agent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Inspector General, vouched for the veracity of the information in the complaint.

The complaint says the Moonlight Road property was the “main staging area for housing and training the pit bulls” involved in the dogfighting operation, and that it hosted fights involving dogs from visiting kennels. Over the years, the “Bad Newz Kennels” also bought several fighting dogs that had traveled in interstate commerce from throughout the country, including South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, New York, Florida, Arizona and Texas, according to the complaint.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

Local Surry County investigators began investigating possible dogfighting at the property in late April, when a search for drugs involving Vick’s cousin found more than 50 pit bulls and several items associated with dogfighting.

Sheriff Harold Brown, who was out of the office and unavailable for comment Friday, said as recently as last week that the local investigation was still active, and that charges could come when the county’s grand jury next convenes July 24.

Poindexter has publicly questioned the federal government’s interest in a dogfighting case. He suggested that Vick’s celebrity was the draw, and raised race as a possible motivation as well. Poindexter and Vick are black, as is Brown.