Iowa man distributed videos of monkeys being tortured: DOJ

( NewsNation ) — An Iowa man has been charged for his participation in a group chat that commissioned and shared videos of monkeys being tortured.

Philip Colt Moss, 41, was charged in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati with conspiracy to create and distribute the videos and with distributing the videos themselves, the indictment reads.

He’s the third American to face charges for these “animal crush” videos showing primates being sexually abused, violently tortured and sometimes killed.

Nicholas T. Dryden, of Ohio, and Giancarlo Morelli, of New Jersey, were charged with the same in June. Dryden faces an additional charged with “production, distribution and receipt of a visual depiction of the sexual abuse of children,” as he allegedly paid a minor in Indonesia to film the videos.

Moss, a lawyer in Iowa’s capitol city of Des Moines, reportedly spent $1,447 on the videos.

If convicted, the Justice Department says Moss could face up to 12 years in prison.

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