PETA Tip-Off Leads to Federal Charges in 'Crush' Video Case

Texas Couple Indicted; First Case in U.S. History Dealing With Gruesome Sexual Animal Mutilations and Killings

For Immediate Release:
November 29, 2012

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Houston -- Just three months after PETA's Emergency Response Team—along with valuable assistance from the Animal Beta Project—uncovered and shut down a major international "crush" video cell operating out of Houston, the suspects have been indicted by a federal grand jury for creating and distributing the videos. Both 51-year-old Brent Justice and 22-year-old Ashley Nicole Richards are now in federal custody. This is the first time that a "crush" case has resulted in federal charges in the United States because of the difficulty of tracing sex crimes on the Internet.

"These historic charges send a stern warning to anyone who mutilates and kills animals for sexual gratification," says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "PETA is grateful to Houston and federal authorities and to the citizen who first alerted us to these atrocious videos. We hope this case inspires everyone to immediately report animal abuse whenever it occurs."

After PETA was tipped off by a concerned citizen in August and alerted the authorities, it took only 48 hours before Justice and Richards were arrested. PETA had obtained dozens of the fetish videos, in which Richards tortures and kills animals—including a puppy, kittens, a rabbit, mice, a pigeon, fish, lobsters, crabs, and more—with high heels, a meat cleaver, knives, screwdrivers, pliers, and other devices. "Crush" videos—which depict women stomping animals to death to satisfy the twisted sexual fetishes of those who watch them—violate a federal law that prohibits the production, sale, and marketing of such videos, rightly labeled "obscene" by lawmakers.

Richards reportedly admitted to killing countless animals—up to two per day—over the years. Richards and Justice were both charged in August with violations of Texas' anti-cruelty statute stemming from videos made in 2010, one of which depicts Richards binding and gagging a kitten with masking tape and then stomping and crushing the animal, putting her high-heeled shoe through the kitten's eye. A second video shows Richards killing a pit bull puppy by using a meat cleaver to hack off his leg and tail and a knife to slash his neck and cut into his leg. Justice faces a charge under the same state statute for filming Richards as she killed the puppy with a knife.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.