Jeffrey Radtke, a man from Bloomington, Minnesota, pleaded guilty for his role in the creation, distribution, and funding of monkey crush videos, according to a press release by the United States Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia. The plea hearing took place in Norfolk, Va.
Radtke interacted directly with a person in Indonesia — identified as Coconspirator 11 (CC11) — and described the types of animal cruelty that he and others wanted to see. The videos showed the brutal and disturbing torture and death of young macaque monkeys.
Radtke reportedly received more than 20 payments between $1 and $300 from his accomplices and sent more than 40 payments to CC11. Court documents said that the payments likely occurred starting in June 2021 and continued through August 2022. More than 5,000 animal crush videos and photos were found in Radtke’s possession, which could land him a prison sentence of up to five years.
“Paying for videos of young monkeys being tortured … I am at a loss for words,” Jessica D. Aber, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote on X. “As a career prosecutor, not much shocks me anymore, but this does.”
Radtke is the latest person to be convicted in a wide-ranging online monkey torture ring that animal protection groups Lady Freethinker (LFT) and Action for Primates (AfP) have spent more than three years investigating.
LFT applauds law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia, and the prosecuting attorney for the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Yusi.
