A Chesapeake man pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking part in a wide-ranging conspiracy to produce and distribute videos showing monkeys being tortured and killed.
Michael Macartney, 51, along with a number of unnamed coconspirators, was part of a private chat group on an encrypted messaging platform used to organize the production and distribution of “animal crush” videos, which is defined legally as “conduct in which one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury.”
Macartney’s charge of conspiring to create and distribute animal crushing videos relates to a period between Nov. 4, 2021 and Aug. 5, 2022, during which he received more than 300 payments relating to the production of the videos. On at least one occasion in March 2022 he offered to sell copies of all of his animal crush videos for $100 and later received $75 electronically in exchange for a link to a website where his videos were stored, prosecutors say.
According to court documents, Macartney told someone to whom he was selling videos that his collection included just under 2,300.
The videos include depictions of torture including sexually sadistic mutilation of juvenile and adult monkeys, according to court documents. The violence was committed by adults and juveniles in foreign countries, though prosecutors only mention Indonesia by name.
Macartney faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, along with a maximum of three years of supervised release. He is scheduled to be sentenced in September.
Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com
