© Houston Police DepartmentAshley Nicole Richards is charged with felony cruelty to non-livestock animals.
One of the first persons in the nation to face federal charges under the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010 pleaded guilty in Houston on Tuesday and may become a government informant on sex trafficking crimes.
Ashley Nicole Richards, 24, admitted to four counts of creating animal crush videos and one film distribution charge.
Animal crush is a sexual fetish in which small mammals such as puppies and kittens are tortured, maimed or killed for the sexual gratification of observers. Videos of such acts, sometimes described as rituals or sacrifices, have been marketed for sale and broadcast online.
Richards and Brent Justice, 54, were the first to be prosecuted under the federal animal crush law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama.
In the films, a scantily clad Richards, sometimes masked, can be seen stabbing animals - including a puppy, a kitten and a chicken - as well as chopping off their limbs and urinating on them while making sexual comments to the camera. In one of the videos seized by authorities, Richards punctured a cat's eye with a shoe heel. A kitten was killed in a crush series in which she starred and that was filmed, prosecutors allege, by Justice.
In 2013, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake dismissed the five counts of video creation and distribution against Richards and Justice, citing the films as protected free speech under the First Amendment. But last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the charges, noting that the First Amendment allows limited restrictions on some speech, including obscenity, and that the federal law passed constitutional muster because of the "secondary effects" of the videos.
Richards faces a federal sentence of up to seven years.
Prosecutors could request a reduced punishment if she agrees to provide information about the "trafficking of minors and adults for commercial sex and sexual exploitation of minors" to them, and, potentially, a grand jury, according to the portion of the confidential plea agreement read allowed in court by Lake. The deal also could allow Richards to receive federal credit for time served in state jail.
Richards, who has been in state custody for three years based on the same acts, has a federal sentencing date in December.
In 2014, she received a 10-year state prison sentence after pleading guilty to three counts of animal cruelty. State and federal animal cruelty charges are pending against Justice, who remains in the Harris County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Seems like a lot more females than males make these Psychopath articles.