ZOOPHILES FACE JAIL AND FURY: Adam Britton, Lucas VanWoert, and Seattle’s Slightly Furry

by Patch O'Furr

(Content warning.)

Three stories with one cause

It was a major week of news for activists against animal abuse, especially the kind that comes from zoophile networking.

AUSTRALIA: Adam Britton was once a prominent zoologist, but now he’s a convicted serial killer of pet dogs. International media featured Britton’s August 8 sentence to 10 years in jail. Outside the court, activists protested for better animal protection, followed by a unity walk with Kiki’s Justice, an awareness campaign named for one of Britton’s victims. The worldwide shock of the case is documentary-worthy.

OHIO: Britton’s online accomplice was Lucas Vanwoert, a truck driver, furry and dog torture-killer. His wife Heather VanWoert was convicted for participating in the crimes, but released in May after a short sentence. It’s a wake-up call about abusers in the furry community. Many furries oppose abuse, but are troubled by how others enable lovers, friends or business partners involved.

SEATTLE: furry brand Slightly Furry brews cider, runs a taphouse, and has an owner named “Kompy” involved in zoophile networking. Watchdogs aired evidence at the same time as Slightly Furry ran a crowdfund and raised over $73,000 from donors to support their for-profit business. Slightly Furry refuses to respond about Kompy’s corruption — except by censoring and banning people who ask questions. Why do they refuse to explain this to the community, after taking so much support and calling their business an ambassadorship of furry to the general public? What will stop the enabling, after Pacific Northwest furries already faced exposure of a shocking abuse ring?

This is about networking, not just isolated offenses. When zoophiles organize to meet each other, this enables a spectrum of harm to animals who can’t consent, from coercive molesting to deadly zoosadism. Demand for abuse media is raised by the network as a whole — a well-known effect of pedophile networks, where participants are held responsible whether or not they did abuse themselves. (Below: more about how this works and how it gets enabled. Like: “It’s no-contact… trust me bro!”) Networking is never harmless.

Reporting zoophile networking

This news is reported by Patch O’Furr, with thanks to Naia Ōkami in Seattle. It’s the latest in ongoing coverage at Dogpatch Press:

When furry spaces are used to shelter the networking, it doesn’t mean everyone knows about it — it means there’s a job to do — but the reported evidence has suffered poor comprehension, weak help, and backlash inside the community. (Below: much more about this and how it can change.) Of course, it’s not just with furries. It’s like suppressed abuse coming out from churches, schools, or Boy Scouts. It can be anywhere from anyone, including the most trusted people…

Adam Britton is one of the worst and most prominent zoosadists ever reported

Britton built a successful career as a zoologist working with crocodiles in TV and movies, with the likes of National Geographic and Sir David Attenborough. Then he set up a shipping container as a torture room on his rural Australian property.

One by one, he took 42 dogs there to exploit and kill them slowly over days each, prolonging the victim’s pain for enjoyment on videos made for secret trading. While feeding the demand of a secret network, he fed their remains to the crocodiles that made his career.

In court, the torture details were so severe, that court staff and observers were directed to therapy. Kiki’s Justice is sharing suicide helplines to those who know.

It’s a glaring example for how devotion to an animal-related profession doesn’t exempt anyone from abusing. It’s commonly known that pedophiles slide into child care work and exploit the opportunity, but it’s little known that zoophiles do the same thing. Many cases overlap both things, and Britton was charged for downloading child abuse images too.

Britton calls himself a zoophile. His court defense portrayed him as helpless to control a paraphilia condition that he hid behind professional achievement. That was the excuse for his systematic, calculated deception of families trying to rehome dogs that they couldn’t keep, who got fake reassurances of their welfare after they were killed. “I can’t stop. I don’t want to”, he told eager trading partners who remain uncaught.

He submitted this apology to the court:

I take full responsibility for the demeaning crimes that I perpetrated on dogs. I deeply regret the pain and trauma that I caused to innocent animals, and consequently to my family, friends, and members of the community I affected. I let you all down, and I’m truly sorry.

I now acknowledge that I’ve been fighting a rare paraphilic disorder for much of my life, and that shame and fear prevented me from seeking the proper help I needed.

No amount of words can convey how sorry and ashamed I am, nor undo what I did. But I am determined to prove that I am better than this, that I will seek longterm treatment, and that I will find a path towards redemption.

Please give my family the space they deserve to heal. They were not aware or involved in any way.

Adam Britton

On August 8 in Australian court, watchers were breathless with anxiety that Britton might only get short jail time for each of 42 victims, to be served all at once.

The outcome was mixed. 10 years of jail was taken as too short, but relatively more than the outcomes of other cases within the limits of the laws.

Britton could be eligible for parole after serving 6 years, but with 2 served before trial. He could walk free as soon as 2028. He is supposed to register as a sex offender, and has a lifetime ban on animal contact, but it’s limited to mammals — so he might try to work with crocodiles again.

Outside the court, furious activists waved signs and spoke to media about weak animal protection laws. Then on August 10, the Kiki’s Justice Unity Walk led supporters and their dogs to a picnic with guest speakers about animal welfare.

An organizers said: “From the Adam Britton case, animal lovers have come together and stood united in their fight against those who abuse animals. Friendships have formed, from a place of absolute heartbreak. People are working together, to address social media and hold those platforms to account. And to use Adam Britton’s own words against him “We can’t stop… we don’t want to.””

Kiki’s Justice represents families of some of the killer’s victims. They plan to take out ads any time he’s up for parole. His academic work, TV appearances and online accounts are being removed. His doctorate might be next. A book will document what happened, and the activism goes on for other cases.

One observer said: “what he did far surpasses the death by neglect and killing a dog by beating, which is what people imagine dog killings to be. We must make people aware of him, and make him aware that we will never forget and will track him when he is released.”

8 years jail for Lucas VanWoert, wife gets a slap on the wrist for participating

Lucas VanWoert is Britton’s most known accomplice. He used furry name “Graves” as they exchanged 705 files of animal and child abuse and inspired each other to torture and kill. In their networking, there’s 3 things to notice about VanWoert:

  • Anyone can call themselves a furry, and as far as his online profiles show, he was a nobody without special favor or influence in the community. But…
  • He was far from an isolated abuser in furry. The owner of a secret trading group that hosted VanWoert and Britton was also in furry spaces. VanWoert wasn’t well hidden, with the same online handle across kink and bestiality sites visible on the web. He was also mutual followers with furry-zoophiles in a secret iceberg of thousands (covered in a previous report.) And…

On May 30, Lucas Vanwoert was sentenced to 97 months in prison, with 15 years probation after release. Heather VanWoert was convicted and served 6 months in jail but released in May. The light sentence caused disappointment and alarm among activists who know animals aren’t safe when predators have little consequences. That and their presence in furry shows a reason to join activists for change and transparency, and not let the opposite happen…

FRUITLESS: Seattle’s Slightly Furry dodges questions about co-owner Nick “Kompy” Charbonneau

Furries like supporting projects by each other. Seattle is a fertile place for that. Slightly Furry harvested that energy for cider brewing, and opened a taphouse, making a physical base for events and groups. That powered over $73,000 in donations for repairs — with a rotten side they can hide if it doesn’t raise sales of a for-profit business.

In 2018, shocking evidence emerged of a zoophile network in the Pacific Northwest furry community, with deadly zoosadism at its core. A few participants got decades in jail. Many had no consequences and remained active. For a time, Matthew “Cupid” Grabowsky was one of them. Dogpatch Press reported he was a convicted zoosadist at furry events, but his presence was protected by PNW organizers, until investigation by Naia Ōkami led to his new conviction and removal to jail in 2021.

Look for negligence and enabling when a known, severe problem returns with permission by organizers.

Nothing was foreshadowed in glowing P.R. about Slightly Furry in Seattle news from The Stranger. The story features three owners: Aaron “Martini” Kalin, Raymond “Spork” Araldi, and Nick “Kompy” Charbonneau (who also runs a kink event production company).

Kalin wants the taproom to feel like the first floor of a furry convention, a social space where furries can be themselves and the curious can get a taste of what an active FurCon might feel like. He even envisions the bar as an ambassadorship of furry to the general public, an important aspect of both his and Araldi’s identities.

“It’s not just for marketing,” Kalin said. “It’s me putting myself out there in probably the most intense, bravest way that I can possibly think of, saying, ‘No, this is really me, I’m not going to dial it down that much for you. So you can kind of take it or leave it.’ And luckily, as far as we can tell, the public has received it pretty well.”

The curious public might look at Slightly Furry’s “About us” page. Then they might wonder, where’s the third owner, Kompy? Why aren’t they putting him out there? Maybe something is dialed down. Here’s 3 things that they might not want to have bubble up.

THE “ZOO PRIDE” FLAG. Kompy’s husband posted selfies with this sticker on his phone made for zoophile networking. (NSFW archive / Info.) There is no mistaking photos from the source. Consider the conflict of interest this makes for Kompy and Slighty Furry’s management.

HOOKING UP WITH CONFESSED ZOOPHILES. Cenny is a furry who gained 30,000 Twitter followers and $5,000+ a month for making adult media with other furries. He has years of wide criticism for zoophile networking, including consuming real-animal media. The clout drew enabling and denial, but he proved critics right by coming out with the zoophile Zeta symbol (ζ). It’s the most obvious networking there is. Kompy and Cenny are so close that they make porn (NSFW) with Kompy’s husband. Again consider the conflict of interest for Slightly Furry’s management.

CONFESSION BY KOMPY: Not just networking and enabling, but directly consuming zoo media and raising demand. Kompy deleted this to hide the evidence shortly after watchdogs pointed it out.

Add up three clues. Once can be a mistake… twice a coincidence… three times triangulates a location.

It isn’t Safe-For-Petsylvania. It’s not part of the Pro-Consent-letariat. You don’t need to be on moral high ground to know it’s not a place of hope or trust, if you want to report abuse and expect a priority on victims. If you want to try, don’t knock on their door. These boozy would-be furry ambassadors will be lost in the sauce or out at the zoo.

If we still give benefit of the doubt, there’s a simple way to clear things up. Ask them directly if they support zoophiles. It’s easy to say “no”.

Kompy’s Curiouscat page. Even if you want to be roofied at an alcohol venue with sketchy management, inebriated sex has no legal consent defense.

Slightly Furry owner Aaron “Martini” Kalin acknowledged a request for questions for a news story, which were ignored.

They couldn’t answer when asked point blank: “Should there be such a thing as Zoo Pride, and is it welcome at Slightly Furry?”

They also couldn’t answer if they had any safety policy or a process to report a problem.

Then on the given publishing deadline, they posted a strange Code of Conduct. It defines consent to restrict sharing evidence, like screenshots… but a Code doesn’t override law, in the opinion of a furry lawyer consulted for this:

“The appropriate benchmark has repeatedly been whether a speaker has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the environment, and most cases I’ve seen have said “not in chat rooms,” analogizing them to voicemail. It’s kind of like if a con had a “no recording” policy for panels and then tries to argue a panelist or audience member had an expectation of privacy if someone did record. It’s not gonna stand, probably because you don’t have an expectation of privacy when speaking to a large group of people.”

Naia was banned by Slightly Furry for asking questions, and thinks the Code hides “sketchiness”. (The lawyer also noticed that QR code access isn’t good for legal agreements.) Naia says:

“The obvious intention of this policy is to have a chilling effect on criticisms of the bar, its owners, its staff, and its patrons. It’s extremely bizarre that these policies are hidden behind a QR code. This can be done for a number of reasons, including their intention to possibly need to change policies again, as they have done as a result of this scandal, and not wanting to have to constantly change physical signs. A much more obviously apparent reason is to hide the sketchiness from newcomers.”

The announcement.

Then there’s the most relevant part. Slightly Furry’s Code defines community concern about zoophile networking as a personal problem.

If the abuser isn’t abusing at their place — like their participant who was convicted of deadly zoosadism — their Code says it’s not their problem.

Of course private bedroom activity isn’t public interest — but when it’s a person of community influence, a manager with power for running events and their safety — is it really our problem to address the amount of zoophile networking, demand for abuse media, and rape they enable?

Until they make it their problem too, Naia and other watchdogs like Con Staff Watch have been documenting it for them.

Based on the evidence, the well-documented Zoophile Mute List by Heika displays Slightly Furry as a zoophile supporter.

Herd denial and learned helplessness towards a zoophile-industrial complex 

Consider the general human problem, not just for furry readers. Like suppressed abuse coming out from churches, schools, or Boy Scouts.

Movies like Spotlight depicted abusive priests getting moved from church to church, letting them prey without recognition. It was buried by active shifting. The disconnection of furry spaces also lets abusers cycle freely through new groups using new fursonas. Abusers don’t need active cover to skip town with passive policies like “if it didn’t happen here, it’s a personal problem”. Different route, same result.

Group disconnection starts with being marginal, as many gay people know. They find safety in niche community. Bigotry helps set the problem up before it’s inside, and insiders get an overactive immune system towards negative attention. When Bewares get conflated with bigotry, and freedom means from transparency… in-group-ness can liberate against outside problems, but stifle ones inside.

Suppression helps abusers hide. It’s enabling when evidence is blindly blown off with the “cancel culture” or “witch hunt” cliches sent towards previous reporting. The blindness starts to change when community members get aware, inform each other, do transparent ambassadorship, and meet outside help while the general public is also getting informed.

Herd denial doesn’t just represent individual corruption, but a wide scale “nobody’s job” dilemma. It’s not just misuse of influence, it’s built into how the internet let interest communities spiral fractally into more and more granular and unregulated niches. From furries, to liberated kink, to hidden abuse, to core zoosadists, with lagging recognition and inadequate remedy. (What can a little blog do besides say it’s everyone’s job?)

In internet no-mans-land, zoophile networking starts with signaling. They use codes, flags, hashtags and personal ads to furtively meet, then propaganda like magazines, blogs and podcasts to consolidate groups, while begging inclusion like an identity with rights. Some of these studiously avoid sex. It’s a fake front.

No matter what, networking raises access for other zoophiles who claim that animals can consent. There’s no network without the touchy ones, with no way to tell the difference from the “trust me” ones. Then a spectrum of abuse grows beneath notice while animals are unable to tell. Not saying “no” isn’t consent, and animals can’t consent, any more than toddlers can, so abuse is not an identity, and rights are for victims. (This report is not directed at pro therapy that isn’t networking.)

Even when abuse is known, it’s so rarely prosecuted, that there are individual abusers with more victims than the total of American prosecutions each year. (Around 100 cases with all statistics kept “artificially low”.)

Vacancy of oversight makes easy apologism. Networking participants do hairsplitting between “bad abuse” and a “good zoos” myth — as if coercion is consent, or a pure non-contact network exists for innocent fantasy or quack DIY therapy, and “trust me” will protect victims. Then if a bad one does get caught, “good” ones deny responsibility for doing abuse themselves, after they enabled demand and opportunity. Some offer up sacrificial tokens after the harm, (in other words, throwing liabilities under the bus), and claim to make things safe by catching abusers after giving them a place to prey.

There are no safe zoophile networks. If one is visible anywhere, something is wrong, and you can show them the door. It’s certainly possible, because pedophile networking isn’t welcome in your space, is it?

“Not our job” ends up being learned helplessness. It doesn’t take police help to stop giving attention, favor, enabling, or $73,000 in donations towards a threat of zoophile networking getting influence over community management. But sex and alcohol and clout make an industry where zoophiles like Cenny make a comfortable living, and asking their friends to care gets you banned. If the community doesn’t solve its own problems, one alternative is for whistleblowers and activists to team up with outside groups, taking it beyond limited bubbles and fruitless appeals to places they can really be heard.

A few links about networking: 

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