Bloomington man sentenced to federal prison for funding and distributing monkey torture videos filmed in Indonesia
A 62-year-old Bloomington man has been sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison after admitting to funding videos of monkeys being tortured and killed in Indonesia and then sharing them with others online.
Jeffrey Radtke received the 21-month term last week in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., where he and co-conspirators were charged under the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, which makes it illegal to create or distribute depictions of 'animal crushing,' defined as burning, suffocating, impaling or causing the serious bodily injury of animals. Radtke's sentence includes three years of supervised probation following incarceration.
Court documents say that for nearly two years Radtke and others routinely communicated with a co-conspirator in Indonesia through an encrypted online messaging platform to fund and instruct how to carry out videos depicting 'the torture, murder, and sexually sadistic mutilation of animals, specifically, juvenile and adult monkeys.'
Between June 2021 and July 2022, Radtke received over 20 electronic payments ranging from $1 to $300 from his co-conspirators to fund the videos. He then sent more than 40 payments ranging from $25 to $295 to the Indonesian co-conspirator to create videos and send them back, a criminal complaint, filed in August, says.
Law enforcement raided Radtke's Bloomington home in April 2023. His computer contained more than 2,600 videos and 2,700 images depicting animal torture, including videos of the sodomizing of the monkeys, crushing of the monkeys' genitals, 'and other horrendous actions,' prosecutors said.
In September, Radtke waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to create and distribute videos of animal cruelty.
Radtke is among about a dozen people prosecuted in the U.S. and U.K. over the past year for their roles in the monkey torture ring, which was exposed by the BBC and investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI. Several Indonesian suspects have also been charged.
Michael Macartney, of Chesapeake, Va., was a key ringleader in the U.S., prosecutors say. Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who used the online alias, 'Torture King,' was sentenced to three years and four months in prison on Oct. 1.
Kenneth Herrera, a western Wisconsin pharmacist, was previously sentenced to a year in prison.
Radtke, who had no prior criminal history, faced between 21 and 27 months in prison at Thursday's sentencing. Although prosecutors previously agreed that Radtke should not be assessed a sentence enhancement for being a leader in the conspiracy, they still sought an upward departure to a three-year prison term, according to court documents.
Meanwhile, Radtke's Minneapolis-based attorney, Christa Groshek, asked for a downward departure to one year and one day and that it be served as electronic home confinement.
Radtke's 'grotesque behavior' took place over a 'small stretch of time, late in his life,' Groshek wrote in a sentencing memorandum to the judge, adding 'there is almost zero chance he will recidivate.'
Through therapy, Groshek said, Radtke has learned that because of 'his self-hate due to childhood trauma, decided to exploit the anonymity he thought he had behind an internet alias to commission the torture of animals which — twisted as it was — was a way for him to see himself in the animals being tortured.'
Radtke is remorseful and a 'broken man' who 'knows he is broken,' his attorney said. 'But he is seeking help.'
Radtke told the judge in a letter ahead of sentencing that therapy has made him 'realize now the horror of my selfish actions, and the unhealthy and maladaptive way that I used these animals. I rationalized my actions because they were considered pests and were used as test subjects. My excuse was that I was saving myself by destroying them.'
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