A Romanian princess accused of hosting cockfighting derbies with her husband at their Eastern Oregon ranch pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon to one count of operating an illegal gambling venture. 
 
 Irina Walker, 61, admitted to U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman that from April 2012 until May 2013 she "provided food and beverages" for those attending the cockfights held on her and her husband's property. She acknowledged profiting from the venture, in which roosters were outfitted with knives or "gaffs," and forced to fight one another to the death. 
 
 Walker is the daughter of the last king of Romania and is married to John Wesley Walker, 68, a former Coos County sheriff's deputy who also pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon to the same charge. The two are both scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 22. 
 
 As part of a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office, prosecutors and the defense will jointly recommend a sentence of three years of probation for both Walkers, according to the plea agreement. The maximum sentence they could face is five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. 
 
 The agreement calls for the couple to sell a portion of their ranch by November 2015 and forfeit $200,000 to the government, representing proceeds from the 10 cockfighting derbies they hosted during that time. 
 
 The Walkers were initially charged with directing or owning an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act and 10 counts of sponsoring or exhibiting a rooster in an unlawful animal fighting venture. 
 
 The federal indictment named 18 defendants associated with the derbies, which took place in a barn on the Walkers' Morrow County ranch in Irrigon. All have pleaded guilty in either Oregon or Washington except for two fugitives who have not been arrested. 
 
 According to U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer, John Walker arranged with a co-defendant, Mario Perez, to set up a cockfighting operation on the Walker property. Perez was an experienced cockfighting referee, Peifer said. They also brought in an assistant referee. 
 
 As part of the operation, entrants would pay $1,000 fee to enter roosters to fight one another. The fees would go to a central pot, with 10 percent going to the referees and 90 percent to the winners. 
 
 The Walkers collected a $20 cover charge from each of the 100 or so participants who attended a derby on average, Peifer said. They also sold and pocketed the profits of alcohol and other beverages. 
 
 Initially, Irina Walker provided the food, but it was found to be "unacceptable" to the attendees, Peifer said. The Walkers then brought in a woman to cook Mexican food, charging her a fee to sell her concessions but allowing her to keep the proceeds, he said. 
 
 John Walker also arranged for a Pendleton company to provide portable toilets for the derbies. And Walker provided security and patrolled his property for signs of law enforcement, Peifer said. 
 
 The two remain out of custody pending sentencing. 
 
 -- Helen Jung ||||| PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Romanian princess Irina Walker pleaded guilty Wednesday to operating an illegal gambling business in connection with a cockfighting enterprise in rural Oregon. 
 
 Walker and her husband, John, accepted plea deals in which the government dismissed charges of animal fighting and conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act. Sentencing has been scheduled for Oct. 22. The government recommends a sentence of probation for both Walkers, along with the forfeiture of $200,000. 
 
 Irina Walker, 61, is the third daughter of former Romanian King Michael I, who was forced to abdicate by communists in 1947. 
 
 She admitted to U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman that she profited from a gambling venture in which roosters had knives attached to their legs and fought to the death. 
 
 "I provided food and beverage, your honor, and the location," she said. She declined to speak with reporters. 
 
 The Walkers were arrested last summer after authorities said they staged at least 10 cockfighting derbies in a barn at their ranch in Irrigon, 175 miles east of Portland and just south of Washington state. 
 
 Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said the Walkers charged spectators $20 to enter and the crowds generally exceeded 100 people. The couple also made money from the sale of alcohol. 
 
 Irina Walker initially made food for the spectators, Peifer said. But when her dishes proved unpopular, John Walker brought on a woman to make crowd-pleasing tacos and burritos. 
 
 Peifer said the people who brought roosters to fight paid $1,000 to enter, and the pool ranged from $10,000 to $18,000. The person whose roosters won the most fights took home the money, except for the 10 percent takeout kept by the referees. 
 
 More than a dozen other people were indicted in the case. Charges against the woman who made the Mexican food were later dropped and two defendants remain fugitives: Ruben Saltos Godina, known as Chino; and Antonio Dominguez Robles, known as Tono. 
 
 Everyone else pleaded guilty, either in Oregon or Washington state. 
 
 Irina Walker moved to the U.S. from Switzerland in the early 1980s with her former-husband John Kreuger, her daughter, Angelica Kreuger, told the AP last year. Kreuger said her mother rode horses, gardened, studied the Bible and raised two children while living for many years in Coos County in southwest Oregon. 
 
 The princess later divorced her husband and married John Walker, a family friend and neighbor. The couple moved to sparsely populated Irrigon, living in a triple-wide manufactured home. 
 
 John Walker, 68, was a sheriff's deputy in Coos County from 1998 to 2003. He told Judge Mosman that an experienced cockfighting referee, Mario Perez, came to him, seeking a place to hold derbies. The fights were first held outdoors until Walker put up a barn-like structure with a metal roof. 
 
 "I had built the barn to hold hay," he told the judge. 
 
 Walker, who owned many guns, handled security. He also arranged for a company to supply portable toilets. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Steven DuBois at http://www.twitter.com/pdxdub ||||| SEATTLE — A woman described as a princess in the Romanian royal family was arrested in Oregon as part of a sweep of a cockfighting ring that allegedly held "derbies" staged by her and her husband at their ranch, federal prosecutors said. 
 
 Irina Walker, 60, and her husband, John Wesley Walker, 67, were among 18 people indicted and arrested Thursday in Oregon and Washington on charges connected to cockfighting as well as operating an illegal gambling operation, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office. 
 
 The Swiss-born Irina Walker is the middle daughter of King Michael I and Queen Anne of Romania, the fifth in line to the throne, the Oregonian newspaper reported. The royal family still owns four castles in the former Soviet-bloc country. Her father abdicated the throne in 1947; the country is now run by democratically elected officials. 
 
 In the statement released Thursday, the U.S. attorney for Oregon, Amanda Marshall, called cockfighting a "barbaric practice" that is illegal in all 50 states. 
 
 Prosecutors described cockfighting as a blood sport with roosters that are surgically altered, trained and conditioned for fighting, and are forced to take vitamins and supplements that boost their strength and endurance. 
 
 The birds — with knives or other sharp instruments attached to their legs — were pitted against each other in a fight to the death as spectators watched, prosecutors said. There was even a concession stand where food and drinks were sold. 
 
 The fight doesn't end, prosecutors said, until one of the gamecocks is killed or refuses to continue. "If not killed during the fight, the losing rooster is almost always killed after the fight," prosecutors said in the indictment. 
 
 Prosecutors allege that 10 such fights, called derbies, were held on Walker's property in Irrigon, Ore., near the state's Washington border. 
 
 Walker and her husband were charged along with four others of operating an illegal gambling business, in addition to charges of conducting unlawful cockfighting ventures, prosecutors said. All 18 are set to be arraigned in federal court Friday in Oregon and Washington. 
 
 If convicted on all counts, Walker and her husband could face several years of prison time and millions of dollars in fines, and would have to forfeit the property where the fights were held, prosecutors said. 
 
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 rick.rojas@latimes.com
– "Romanian princess" and "cockfighting" probably aren’t the two terms you were expecting to hear together today, but Irina Walker just made that happen—again. The 61-year-old daughter of the last king of Romania and her husband, John, pleaded guilty yesterday to running an illegal gambling operation from their Oregon ranch. The admission came as part of a government deal in which charges of animal fighting and conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act were dropped, the AP reports. The princess admitted to profiting from what authorities say were at least 10 rooster "derbies" that she and her husband hosted in which the birds fought to the death with sharp knives strapped to their legs. "I provided food and beverage, your honor, and the location," she said in court. Prosecutors alleged the husband-and-wife team made a pretty penny from the operation: They charged 100 or so spectators a $20 cover and kept profits from alcohol sales, according to the Oregonian. Irina also attempted to make food to sell to the crowd, but prosecutors said attendees deemed her offerings “unacceptable”; the Walkers then commissioned a Mexican woman to make tacos (they reportedly let her keep her concession cash after charging her a fee). The Walkers are set to be sentenced in October, with an expected government recommendation for the duo to pony up $200,000 from their cockfighting proceeds and get three years of probation, says the AP.