‘Abhorrent acts.’ Kentucky man guilty in case involving videos showing animal torture
A Kentucky man has admitted taking part in a scheme to distribute videos of animals being tortured, including one in which a monkey was killed.
Kendall Glenn Hacker pleaded guilty Feb. 7 in federal court in Lexington to a charge of conspiracy to create and distribute animal crush videos.
Those are videos that show one or more animals being “purposefully crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury and is obscene,” according to Hacker’s plea.
Hacker was involved in the conspiracy from at least November 2021 to August 2022. The conspiracy involved creating the videos outside the U.S. but distributing them in the country.
A document in a related case said the videos were made in Indonesia.
Monkey tortured, killed in video
Hacker was involved in online groups that paid for torture videos and received, exchanged and distributed them, and he sent money to an administrator of the groups, a Virginia man named Michael Macartney, according to court records.
In April 2022, a member of the groups submitted a message about the “ants in a jar idea,” and people in the groups discussed sending donations to produce exclusive videos for them.
“Hell yeah, I’ll donate for new content,” Hacker messaged, according to his plea.
A few minutes later, a co-conspirator sent a video that showed the torture of a young monkey using a jar of ants, and then the monkey being sodomized with an object, which caused it to die, according to the court record.
Hacker and others complimented the video and discussed giving a bonus to the videographer.
Hacker messaged “Nice!”, said he loved how it was made and asked for information on sending money, according to his plea.
Hacker possessed that video and others showing monkeys being tortured, his plea agreement said.
Facing up to five years in prison
Macartney pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in October to three years and four months in prison, according to documents in his case.
“Michael Macartney and his co-conspirators produced a collection of videos displaying abhorrent acts of animal torture that can only be described as evil,” Derek W. Gordon, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, said when Macartney pleaded guilty.
Records in state court indicate Hacker has lived in Richmond. He faces up to five years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves scheduled Hacker to be sentenced in May.
