A still image of a baby long-tailed macaque, which prosecutors say is from a torture video.
Man sentenced for 'animal crush' videos of baby monkeys he bought, shared on Telegram
The videos, which were shared online, showed baby monkeys being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled and mutilated.
A federal judge in Cincinnati on Sept. 30 said the videos were among the most horrific things she had heard about in three decades on the bench.
“I'm sorry I even know what they are,” US District Judge Susan Dlott said at a sentencing for a man who paid more than $1,200 for multiple videos – and even made requests about what acts of torture he wanted to see.
The man, 39-year-old Giancarlo Morelli, a car salesman from New Jersey, was one of multiple people charged locally last year in connection with the videos.
Dlott sentenced Morelli, who was accused of conspiracy to distribute animal crush videos, to four years in prison and ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine.
The videos are illegal under a 2010 federal law that criminalizes so-called animal crush videos.
A second defendant, 28-year-old Nicholas Dryden of Cincinnati's English Woods neighborhood, attempted to plead guilty on Sept. 30, but Dlott rejected the plea.
Dlott didn't fully explain her decision. Dryden faced a maximum of 12 years in prison, but the plea agreement called for a seven-year sentence. Dlott indicated that she wanted to impose a sentence longer than seven years.
Prosecutors say Dryden paid a 17-year-old boy in Indonesia to create videos showing the torture. The monkeys in the videos were baby or juvenile long-tailed macaques.
Best customer of animal crush videos
Prosecutors described Morelli – who on the messaging app Telegram called himself “Lord CmdrGC” – as Dryden's best customer.
Morelli participated in numerous Telegram chats in which people shared videos and talked about acts of torture they wanted to see. One group had more than 400 members, court documents say.
Morelli's requests, according to prosecutors, led Dryden to ask the Indonesian boy to find a baby monkey and create a video that is described in court documents.
In that 30-minute video, the baby monkey is first fed pieces of a banana. The person recording the video eventually kicks the monkey, then bends and twists its arms, “appearing to break them,” the documents say. The monkey can be seen trying to crawl across the floor “in obvious pain.”
The monkey's genitals are burned with a candle, and it is placed in a cage with a mongoose, which attacks it. The videographer then breaks the monkey's legs before throwing it against a wall and the floor.
Prosecutors say Morelli paid for that video and only stopped buying videos from Dryden after Dryden was arrested.
He beats it to death
In one Telegram exchange about a video, Dryden says, “He beats it to death and cuts its (genitals) off.”
Morelli's response: “Yes finally!”
Prosecutors noted that Morelli also funneled money to others, who would then obtain videos for the Telegram group.
At the Sept. 30 sentencing, Morelli, wearing a gray suit, read a statement, apologizing for what he did. Although sober now, Morelli said a heroin addiction that he hid from his wife and child was at least partly to blame.
“All God's creatures should be respected and cared for,” he told Dlott, adding: “I am extremely sorry for my actions, and the harm brought to these animals.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Telegram said: "Any content that encourages violence is explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service and is removed whenever discovered. Moderators empowered with custom AI tools proactively monitor public parts of the platform and accept reports in order to remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day, including animal abuse content."
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