M Jenny Edwards
SME, Animal Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
SOLICITATION, PROSTITUTION, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT
Description: Request, encouragement, or demand that another engage in bestiality, including inchoate instances. Promotion of bestiality by another (e.g. filming another having sexual contact with an animal). Facilitation or promotion of others to engage in bestiality for recreation or commercial gain on premises under his or her control. Conspiring with another to commit bestiality. See also: CHILD SEX OFFENDER
Linked Crimes: Sexual exploitation of minor or adult, threats, extortion
Description: Request, encouragement, or demand that another engage in bestiality, including inchoate instances. Promotion of bestiality by another (e.g. filming another having sexual contact w/animal). Facilitation or promotion of others to engage in bestiality for recreation or commercial gain on premises under his/her control. Conspiring with another to commit bestiality. See also: CHILD SEX OFFENDER
Linked Crimes: Incest, child welfare endangerment, pornography production & distribution, drug possession, coercion, threats, extortion
Case Summaries - SOLICITATION OR FACILITATION OF BESTIALITY
Bestiality cases include a spectrum of behavior. There is no single profile of someone who is sexually attracted to animals, or who assaults or exploits animals for sexual purposes. Cases presented here are grouped by the prominent behavior exhibited by the offender. Chandler Edwards maintains a comprehensive NIBRS-level database of arrested, convicted, and suspected offenders. If you are in law enforcement and need additional information about a particular case, please email your request and we will respond, usually within 30 minutes.
Case Examples
FACILITATION, AID OR ABET
Description: Assisting another person to commit the crime of bestiality through filming the act, providing or restraining an animal during the act, or providing the location where the act is committed.
Linked Crimes: Bestiality, child sexual abuse, drugs, traffic infractions
Case Examples
MICHIGAN - June, 2018. Maxx Rapp, 20 was curious about bestiality so he posted an ad on Craigslist to see if anyone had a dog they'd be willing to share. Joseph Hattey, 51 a physicist who worked in animal research at the Michigan State University lab, responded and arranged for Rapp to come to his house and "meet" his Basset Hound. During court testimony, Rapp described how Hattey stroked the dog's genitals while Rapp petted his head. In exchange for testifying against Hattey, Rapp was not charged with solicitation, but Hattey, who facilitated the act, was charged with bestiality.
Young teens blackmailed into performing sex acts with animals
December 6, 2018
As reported by The Detroit News, US Federal prosecution and sentencing is underway to convict multiple defendants involved in an international child exploitation ring infiltrated by the FBI in 2015. The sites ringleaders have been sentenced, but only a fraction of the more than 100 girls have been identified.
In a sextortion site called the "Bored Group", men posing as teen boys trolled social media sites for years to identify and lure girls as young as 10 into performing sex acts on camera. Often the young girls were blackmailed into performing increasingly deviant acts on camera.
The sextortion site was run by a tech-savvy group of men including a well-educated co-founder of a computer graphics company, IT managers of well-known companies, and men with advanced degrees, who organized organized themselves by specialty: "Hunters" lured the girls into private chatrooms, "Loopers" posed as teen boys to gain their trust, and "Talkers" convinced the girls to strip, masturbate, and perform sex acts - including bestiality - recorded on web cams. Outcome for many of the victims has been devastating; some have turned to cutting or anorexia; others became severely depressed, even suicidal.
Sadly, outcomes for animal victims of sexual abuse is not dissimilar. Animals seized from sexually abusive homes are also often depressed, have appetite disturbances, and behave inappopriately with people. Unlike human sex abuse victims however, animals seldom receive therapy, and are frequently euthanized instead.
For more information about sextortion, watch this short video.
THAILAND - November 2, 2018 | UPDATED November 6, 2018 - Animal Prostitution
After a year-long investigation, a 52-year-old man was arrested for prostituting dogs. Damrongpol Sanmuang acquired dogs from several sources - most of them strays, but at least one dog has been identified as belonging to a neighbor. Sanmuang set up a chat room where members could view images of animals being sexually abused by Sanmuang and his customers. For $6 customers could not only watch videos, but once a month were allowed to choose a dog to have sex with him. Under Thailand's Animal Protection Act of 2014, Sanmuang could be sentenced to up to two years in prison and receive a fine of about $1,200 U.S.
Reports of animal prostitution are rare, however, at least one such brothel in Borneo was discovered in 2003, when a 35-member SWAT team assisted members of an animal rescue organization in seizing a young female orangutan from a house where she was being sexually abused on a regular basis. "Pony" was relocated to an orangutan sanctuary and as of 2013 was nearly ready to be released to an island where she live among other organgs while still being supervised.
OHIO - Married father coninced more than 25 girls across the U.S. and in Australia to send him sexually explicit photos and videos. Richard Lee Devito, 34 persuaded one 8-year-old girl to send him videos of her dancing naked or rubbing her genitals. More than 1,700 images were found of this victim, including images of the girl with her family pet.
February, 2018 - Registered sex offender Joshua O'Brian, 28 was charged with child pornography after he received sexually explicit texts and images from a 12-year-old girl in Pennsylvania. Investigators found the two had exchanged 6,558 texts during a two-month period in 2017. Images of the girl, bestiality, and naked selfies of O'Brien were found on his cellphone.
March, 2018 - Firefighter and EMT Travis Dick, 27 was arrested for inappropriately touching a 13-year-old girl after requesting she send him and some other men naked pics of her in the shower. Dick also sent naked selfies to two other girls via Facebook Messenger. During the investigation, officers learned Dick had searched for incest pornography online and had downloaded bestiality videos to his cellphone. Dick was charged with importuning, disseminating pornography to minors, and other sex-related charges. He pleaded no-contest and was given one year or probation.
OREGON - March, 2018 - Mark Richard McKuhn, 41 was convicted in 1999 of first degree sexual abuse and penetration with a foreign object; charges of sodomy and rape were dismissed. He was given 10 years' probation, but by 2018, he was arrested again for online distribution of pornography. After his arrest, McKuhn admitted to also using the internet to connect with minors and solicit pornographic images from them. McKuhn used Dropbox to store 671 images along with a spreadsheet with information about the files. He has been charged with 1 count of encouraging sexual assault of an animal and 7 counts of encouraging child sexual abuse in the first-degree. McKuhn was living with several other registered sex offenders at the time of his arrest; the investigation is ongoing.
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