Ringleader of global monkey torture network, 'The Torture King', is charged

News@lemmy.world – 538 points – 8 months ago

Ringleader of global monkey torture network, 'The Torture King', is charged

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.

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Yes, running chat groups is not as bad as actually torturing and killing monkeys.

This type of comment always really bothers me. You are misrepresenting what is being compared. It's not running chatrooms that is being judged. It's facilitating and organizing the creation and distribution of animal torture content. If he was running chatrooms about my little pony no one would care. Framing it as running chat rooms is dishonest. Flying planes isn't bad. Flying planes into buildings is. Say out loud the part you are trying to to minimize.

How so? I didn't say he ran some innocent or general chat groups, they were obviously involved in horrific shit. You are misrepresenting what I am saying.

Without him the tortures wouldn't have happened or at least be minimised.

So he is directly responsible for the extra torture he himself knowingly facilitated.

Without the people willing to torture and murder the animals it wouldn't have happened.

Making doing a bad thing easier makes the bad thing happen more. This is a really simple concept.

Right, but it needs people to do it in the first place.

No one is saying that's not true. You are not making a point there. Connecting the people willing to do it to the people willing to view it increases demand and increases the occurrence.

You don't seem to be making a very different point here. Yes, it increases demand, but, as I said, those committing the violence are the ones who should be held more to account in my opinion, which is what start this conversation chain.

The start of the conversation seems to be someone saying that what he did was fucked up and he deserves more than 5 years for it. Then you wanted to make a distinction about his role in the torture for entertainment industry. If your point was that the people committing the torture directly should receive longer sentences than him then you did just about the worst job possible to convey that.

Yes, running chat groups is not as bad as actually torturing and killing monkeys.

I made it pretty clear yesterday.

No you didn't. That doesn't make your supposed point that the people that did the torture directly deserve more time in jail than him. You took a weird stand at a weird time and communicated it very poorly the whole way through.

Yes it does. "A weird time"? I don't choose to post at specific times of the day. Never mind then.

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Whoa! Look at them go, digging up that goal post! Where y’all think they’ll move it to next?

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Willing to say the same thing about child porn and sex trafficking?

Why not? If you do the act yourself it's worse than asking someone. Just like it would be for murder, the murderer gets longer behind bars, this is not surprising.

I disagree

Willingly and knowingly promoting and distributing and organizing inhumane acts is as equally bad as commiting the core inhumane act directly. The goal and impact are equal.

In my opinion there is no spectrum for comparison in inhumane acts. It simple is or isn't.

Hitler was just as inhumane as the ones he ordered to commit the acts.

There is no better or worse, just is or isn't.

Those are fair points. Would, hypothetically, someone who is off the deep end be punished just as badly as someone who decided to follow those words? Or would it depend on their position of authority?

I'd leave that up to judge and jury with real details rather than hypotheticals, but I do think for justice to be accurate the state of mind, intentions, and many other factors should be considered.

I do think a person who was mentally competent, understanding the act is inhumane would get a more harsh justice than a person who wasn't.

I think authority doesn't have a direct role in deciding justice

I don't think following orders is an excuse, each of us has a duty to understand what we are doing and are responsible for the results. but if a person was incapable of understanding the results of their actions that is different from a person who was.

A person who has authority likely is knowing and competent and intentional, and the wider impact of their actions will implicitly have harsher justice without directly considering their authority

Most countries have protections for people disobeying illegal orders, and most countries make inhumane acts illegal so I feel like this well covered.

Was he charged with "running a chat group?" Or "conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos?"

What did he do?

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.

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.

The ideas were then sent, along with payments, to video-makers in Indonesia who carried them out, sometimes killing the baby long-tailed macaque monkeys in the process.

According to charging documents, Mr Macartney, who lives in the US state of Virginia, is accused by prosecutors of collecting funds from his chat groups and distributing videos depicting the "torture, murder, and sexually sadistic mutilation of animals, specifically juvenile and adult monkeys".

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.

Speaking to the BBC Eye investigations team last year, Mr Macartney confessed to his role in the torture network, describing himself as the "king of this demented world".

"I was the man," he said. "You want to see monkeys get messed up? I could bring it to you."

Mr Macartney also described the moment he joined his first Telegram monkey group.

"They had a poll set up," he said. "Do you want a hammer involved? Do you want pliers involved? Do you want a screwdriver?"

The resulting videos were "the most grotesque thing I have ever seen", Mr Macartney said, and yet he went on to become a key player in the monkey torture groups.

The BBC understands that more charges are expected to follow soon for other key players in the monkey torture network. At least 20 people were placed under investigation last year globally, following the BBC's investigation.

Three participants have already been charged in the US, including Mr Macartney. Two torturers were arrested and jailed in Indonesia, and three women have been arrested in the UK, two of whom have been charged.

Holly LeGresley, 37, of Kidderminster and Adriana Orme, 55, of Upton-upon Severn were charged last month with publishing an obscene article and causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

Ms LeGresley and Ms Orme were high-profile members of the online torture groups. Ms LeGresley, who went by the screen name "The Immolator", was a moderator in a group run by Mr Macartney and was involved in commissioning some of the most extreme videos.

In the US, two others have been charged with the same counts as Mr Macartney.

David Christopher Noble, 48, a former US Air Force officer who was previously court-martialed and dismissed from the military, and Nicole Devilbiss, 35. They are both facing up to five years in prison.

I don't like that it's "up to five years".

I've read it twice, thanks.

You'd never know it!

Funny. Try again.

Yeah, how about YOU try again. If you can’t see what’s wrong with being the distributor, coordinator, enabler, promoter, etc., of such horrible acts, then something’s really wrong with you. Argue all you want, you’re still WRONG.

Another strawman, well done. I never said it was okay. What's wrong with you? Rhetorical question by the way, I really don't care.

Organizing the torture of hundreds of animals is better than torturing one animal yourself?

Good strawman.

You should probably actually learn fallacies before using the wrong one where it is not applicable.

I'm okay, like I said, I have no interest in your responses so you can stop.

I’ll stop when the ignorant are willing to learn.

Okay, you must be trolling. No one is this stupid.

Don't be a cunt.

I'm not. Take your own advice.

You called me a troll and stupid. Yes, you are.

I genuinely didn't expect to find someone defending the torture king earnestly, I think my words were justified

Except I didn't defend him. Try again.

Lol you have no idea what a straw man is. Cute.

From your response you clearly do not.

Boy are you wrong

Why?

Somebody check this guy's hard drive ASAP. Nobody makes this kind of argument unless they're downloading some deranged shit from Telegram.

You'd be surprisingly bored.

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