Iowa man charged after soliciting ‘sadistic’ videos of monkeys, DOJ says
Praveena Somasundaram
An Iowa man was charged with conspiring to distribute “animal crush videos” involving “extreme violence and sexual abuse against monkeys,” the Justice Department announced Friday.
Philip Colt Moss was part of the chats in March and April of last year, federal prosecutors alleged this month in an indictment that defined animal crushing as when animals are “purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury.”
The videos Moss saw showed “sadistic violence against baby, adolescent and adult monkeys,” the Justice Department said in a
news releaseFriday. Moss and two other men — Nicholas Dryden and Giancarlo Morelli, who were charged in June — exchanged messages about the videos, which were made by a minor in Indonesia, prosecutors alleged. According to the indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Moss and Dryden discussed visiting Indonesia, where Moss said they could “make our own” videos.
Attorneys for Moss, Dryden and Morelli did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.
Moss was arrested Aug. 8, court records show. Prosecutors filed the 28-page indictment that day, detailing messages that Moss and the other two defendants allegedly exchanged over the videos.
According to the indictment, Moss and Morelli sent money to Dryden, an Ohio man who was paying people outside of the United States to film graphic videos of monkeys.
The document includes snippets of online conversations between Dryden and a minor who was filming the videos in Indonesia, with Dryden allegedly instructing the minor on what “customers” wanted to see. In a few of the exchanges, Dryden asked for the monkeys to be dressed in yellow clothes and fed with a bottle on camera before they were tortured, sometimes in front of other monkeys, prosecutors alleged. At least three videos Dryden received in response were 30 minutes or longer.
In one April 2023 message, Dryden wrote to the minor and said, “Be creative with the next one,” before adding specific instructions for cutting and burning the monkey, according to the indictment.
About a week later, Dryden asked the minor who filmed the videos: “What sort of tools do you have?” Then, he allegedly asked: “Do you have a blender?”
Prosecutors accused Dryden of receiving the videos and selling them online, including in chats with Moss.
Days later, Dryden told Moss and Morelli that he “got 3 new videos,” suggesting that he would send all the videos for $80, the indictment alleges.
Prosecutors said Moss wrote back: “I’ll buy em!”
Moss was charged with conspiracy to create and distribute animal crush videos and distribution of animal crush videos — the same charges levied against Dryden and Morelli in June. Federal officials also charged Dryden with creation of animal crush videos and production, distribution and receipt of visual depiction of sexual abuse of children because he allegedly paid a minor for the videos.
If convicted, Moss faces a sentence of up to seven years in prison for the creation and distribution charge and up to five years in prison for the conspiracy charge, prosecutors said.
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