Michael Macartney, 50, confessed to the BBC his role in an extreme monkey torture network.
A ringleader in a global monkey torture network exposed by the BBC has been charged by US federal prosecutors.
Michael Macartney, 50, who went by the alias "Torture King", was charged in Virginia with conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos.
Mr Macartney was one of three key distributors identified by the BBC Eye team during a year-long investigation into sadistic monkey torture groups.
Two women have also been charged in the UK following the investigation.
Warning: This article contains disturbing content
Mr Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who previously spent time in prison, ran several chat groups for monkey torture enthusiasts from around the world on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
I gotta admit, I was blissfully unaware that this was a thing. I really did not expect to read a headline like that this morning.
What in the fucking fuck is wrong with people? This motherfucker needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars. The biggest sign of a person becoming a serial killer is their treatment of animals. I mean, he's already been to prison, so it's not like he has any interest in being rehabilitated in prison.
Mr Macartney has cooperated with investigators from the Department of Homeland Security and agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges. He will formally make a plea later this month and is facing up to five years in prison.
WHAT THE FUCK. 5 YEARS?!
FOR SEXUALLY ABUSING, TORTURING, AND MUTILATING ANIMALS FOR PROFIT?!
And of course hes a MAGAt. Fucking soulless, worthless cumstains on the fabric of society.
You see, sometimes you see some fucked up shit in a movie and you think "oh ok, this is just for the sake of story, there's no way this has ever happened in real life"
Then you read an article like this.
The groups were used to share ideas for custom-made torture videos, such as setting live monkeys on fire, injuring them with tools and even putting one in a blender.
How... How do you even come back from this? Is there any hope these people can get rehabilitated? I'm struggling to believe the answer is anything other than "NO."
Depending on the monkey or ape species I feel like this is on par with torturing human babies or young toddlers. They’re completely helpless and as intelligent and self-aware.
They're only getting 5 years in prison. The article also says Macartney had been in prison previously. Since the US prison systems are designed for sadism and punishment, it probably did more to make the guy amenable to this kind of horror. It's also known that slaughterhouses frequently get their workers from the prison system, so it's very possible that this guy will simply have his unapproved abuses exchanged with ones that our society sanctions.
When he comes out, his mind is most likely to be more disturbed than when he went in.
When people warn you about the ideas they associate yourself with, this is what they're talking about.
This is one of the rare occassions when I hope the afterlife is real and what people say about near-death experiences is real. I want these motherfuckers to feel the full horror of what they've done.
You don't find these people on the other political side. You find them on that side. It's a categorical divide, those who use empathy correctly, and those who pretend to suppress it and instead become obsessed with witnessing pain. You know they're all cowards, the shit-my-pants-in-fear kind. Reduced to snot and tears the second the bad cop comes in. Just so incredibly weak and no amount of manmode posturing could ever hide it.
I think I last heard the words "monkey torture" in the 'Barry Lutz Show' sketch by The State in 1994. Can't find a copy of it on YouTube, ebaumsworld has a copy but it didn't want to load for me and the site itself is ad heavy - direct link to the .flv should work but might not play natively in browser. To be clear, the video link is a comedy bit about psychologically torturing monkeys and doesn't show or inflict any harm to any.
I don't have anything meaningful to add to the discussion about the IRL monkey abuse so I'm hoping to inject a little bit of levity to an otherwise terrible subject.
Can we bring in eye for an eye executions? Like not for everyone but when you're such a horrible disgusting soulless monster and you do something on the level of this, can we do the same to them, slowly.
Simple execution or jail doesn't seem fitting for people like this.