In U.S. federal law, “animal crush videos” are any photos, films, or digital recordings that show a live non‑human mammal, bird, reptile, or amphibian being deliberately crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise seriously injured. Congress created this definition in the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010 and wrote it into 18 U.S.C. § 48, which makes it a crime to knowingly create, sell, or distribute such videos in or using interstate or foreign commerce.
The Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) is the Justice Department division that handles the federal government’s environmental and natural‑resources litigation, including enforcement of wildlife‑protection and animal‑cruelty laws. Within ENRD, the Environmental Crimes Section prosecutes criminal cases. In Robert Berndt’s case, ENRD’s Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson announced the sentence, and ENRD Environmental Crimes Section attorneys Mark Romley and Adam Cullman helped prosecute the case alongside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
Public statements say that Robert Berndt “pleaded guilty on May 6 to conspiring to create and distribute so‑called ‘animal crush videos’,” but they do not list the specific U.S. Code section(s) he was charged under. The underlying federal animal‑crushing statute, 18 U.S.C. § 48, makes it a crime to create or distribute animal crush videos in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce and allows a maximum penalty of up to seven years in prison, a fine, or both. Conspiracies to commit federal offenses are commonly charged under the general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, which carries up to five years’ imprisonment, but the exact code citation for Berndt’s conspiracy count is not specified in the available press materials. His actual sentence—38 months in prison plus three years of supervised release—falls well below these maximums.
The Justice Department’s public description of Berndt’s case states only that the conspirators “used encrypted chat applications to direct money to individuals in Indonesia” to commit the torture on camera; it does not explain the technical methods investigators used to trace those communications or payments. In related prosecutions tied to the same global monkey‑torture ring, and in BBC reporting on that network, authorities are described as using a combination of undercover participation in online groups, warrants or legal requests to messaging and payment platforms, analysis of transaction records, and seizures of electronic devices to link online accounts to real‑world identities and payments. The specific investigative steps in Berndt’s case have not been detailed publicly.
Federal prosecutions specifically for creating or distributing animal crush videos are still relatively rare; the core federal law was first narrowed to crush videos in 2010 and broadened again by the 2019 PACT Act, and only a small number of high‑profile cases have been brought. Recent comparable cases include: (1) a Tennessee woman (Favret) who pleaded guilty in 2025 to conspiring to create and distribute videos showing torture and mutilation of baby and adult monkeys, using encrypted chats to send money to abusers in Indonesia, described in a DOJ press release; (2) a Wisconsin man who pleaded guilty in 2023 to a federal animal‑cruelty charge for buying a made‑to‑order monkey‑torture video from Indonesia; and (3) multiple U.S. buyers identified in a global monkey‑torture ring uncovered by the BBC, which notes cooperation with U.S. law‑enforcement and U.S. prosecutions under animal‑crushing laws. Berndt’s case fits this emerging pattern but such prosecutions remain uncommon compared with other federal crimes.
After Berndt leaves prison, his three years of supervised release will be overseen by the U.S. Probation Office in the federal judicial district where he resides; federal probation officers act under the authority of the sentencing court to monitor compliance. Standard conditions of federal supervised release typically include: regularly reporting to a probation officer, notifying the officer of changes in residence or employment, not committing new crimes, avoiding unlawful drug use, allowing home or workplace visits, and following instructions from the officer. Judges can also impose special conditions tailored to the offense—for animal‑cruelty cases this often includes bans or restrictions on owning or caring for animals, limitations on certain internet or social‑media use, participation in mental‑health treatment, and submitting to searches—but the specific conditions in Berndt’s judgment are not detailed in the public press release.