Today, a Philippine court found Vicente and Dorma Ridon guilty of child abuse, cruelty to animals, human trafficking, and wildlife-protection crimes for forcing girls to torture and kill puppies, rabbits, and other animals in “fetish” videos, and sentenced both defendants to life behind bars. The Ridons have been jail since June 2012 (throughout their trial) and will now reside there permanently.
After the “crush” videos surfaced on the internet, PETA Asia notified the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation and worked with authorities to ensure that the Ridons were found, arrested, and prosecuted.
In addition to the life sentences, the couple received fines of more than 9 million pesos (US$198,000) each for their part in making the videos, in which scantily clad girls—one of whom was just 12 years old at the time—were filmed skinning a dog alive and burning another with a clothes iron, cutting off rabbits’ ears and setting the rabbits on fire while they flailed and screamed, hitting a monkey in the eye with the sharp end of a stiletto heel, and crushing puppies until they vomited their own internal organs. Sexual fetishists from Australia, France, Korea, Malaysia, the U.K., the U.S., and elsewhere purchased the videos on the Internet, and all face possible charges.
Animal advocates like you made this victory possible. A compassionate person who stumbled upon one of the horrible videos took the time to report it to PETA Asia. Cases such as this one show why we must Never Be Silent about cruelty to animals.
