Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: Tennessee

Anthroverse Vice Chair forced to resign, retract false claims in Mephit Furmeet zoophile coverup.

by Patch O'Furr

Admission of wrongdoing from the top of a furry convention.

It’s rare to see consequences when leaders abuse power. Here’s a result of investigation by Dogpatch Press into networks for animal sex abuse, how zoophiles can use the furry community as a front, and how leaders corruptly hide them. This investigation has expanded across multiple furry conventions, including Mephit Furmeet in Memphis, TN, and overlapping staff at the newly founded Anthroverse in Ohio.

The reporting exposes a decades-long pattern that hasn’t been addressed until recently. The pattern began to emerge in 2025 with community protest about a notorious zoophile spokesperson. (Charles Alexander Berry, AKA “Toggle Rat”). While Mephit Furmeet management looked the other way, Toggle attended for at least 13 years while interacting face-to-face with management, on their stage and in official con promotion.

Further digging led to evidence that zoophiles WERE management, according to staff lists from the convention’s own website.

When the evidence couldn’t be refuted, they tried to smear the reporter to bury it. Mephit Furmeet management spread false rumors to staff in common with other cons. It leaked out when the Vice Chair of Anthroverse openly lied to 120 followers. The attempt to manipulate public trust wasn’t credible, and then Dogpatch Press was vindicated for reporting what they don’t want you to know.

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COVER UP: Why is Tanta of Mephit Furmeet and Anthroverse hiding zoophile corruption?

by Patch O'Furr

UPDATE: followup article about Tanta’s resignation.

This is a correction to statements by Tanta, volunteer handler at Mephit Furmeet and Vice Chair of forthcoming convention Anthroverse. This report presents evidence to help the community beware of leaders who abuse their positions to lie for PR.

A source for raising animal charity for PR, while looking the other way for animal abusers. (Image updated due to inaccurate tag in linked photo.)

Background of problems at Mephit Furmeet.

Furries close to Mephit Furmeet, the Tennessee convention founded in 1997, were fed up with animal sex abusers being welcome while management ignored complaints. Requests for help led to Dogpatch Press contacting the con, then reporting in October 2025 on behalf of the community and those who were ignored:

Mephit Furmeet put one of the world’s most infamous zoophiles on stage to represent the fandom.

The 2025 report features evidence of 13 years of attendance at Mephit Furmeet by animal sex abuser Charles Alexander Berry — who goes by Buck, Clunk, or Toggle for hosting a podcast called Zooier Than Thou. Toggle attended the con over 4 years after his real identity was tied to his aliases in 2021, despite an organized effort to remove his influence. Local groups took action, but Mephit Furmeet stonewalled this effort, according to sources close to the con.

Toggle was not just a random attendee. This zoophile spokesperson was a long-featured musician in official Mephit Furmeet promotion with his band Exit Mouse. He interacted face-to-face with management at many panels they ran; panels with as few as 5 attendees. His 13-year attendance was under one director with 25 years of tenure, Tyger Cowboy, who started as con chair in 2001.

Here’s where pulling threads starts to unravel a wider network across the history of the con.

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Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom

by Patch O'Furr

Sick of bad news? Want some good news? Here’s how to make it. Get armed with knowledge to demand better for your community. When there is injustice, getting justice starts with reporting it. Bad media likes to linger on gross details of crime, but helpful media investigates and criticizes patterns, issues, impact, policy and leadership. This public service is often requested by people who need help — especially when leaders and police don’t help — like when there’s internet activity outside their reach, or news has to reach sources they need to come forward. It’s a job for independent reporting, so it can’t be suppressed when leaders are corrupt or protecting friends. This is news by us, for us, because outsiders and bad people don’t run your community… you do.

Five stories get their own headline posts. Here’s the short versions.

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Mephit Furmeet put one of the world’s most infamous zoophiles on stage to represent the fandom

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

Charles Alexander Berry (Toggle Rat) runs NAMBLA for zoophiles

For years, furry conventions have hosted Charles Alexander Berry, AKA Toggle Rat. He runs a podcast that launders animal molesting as identity, like NAMBLA for zoophiles, while hiding their victims offstage. In 2021 he was outed as a zoophile with his husband running a furry group in Tennessee. Many people’s effort to protect the fandom went unheard in August 2025, when despite protest, Berry was given a platform on stage at Mephit Furmeet, the furry con running since the 1990’s in Memphis, TN.

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Tennessee furry group leaders corrupted with predators and drug death: two evidence documents

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

“We need justice”

MurfreesFurs, a furry group in Tennessee with around 1000 members, was the subject of an evidence document with 30 sources alleging that organizers covered up nazis and zoophiles in their inner circle, and failed to protect the community from predators. Sources face retaliation, and Dogpatch Press was pressured for suppression before even reporting. The shocking thing is, it was only part of the problem. A second evidence document came out independently from the first, alleging more serious complicity by MurfreesFurs organizers in CSAM, drug dealing and a fentanyl death. Sources include police reports and prison records.

The first and followup documents:

Reading almost 600 pages is a challenge, so it was boiled down by a two hour phone call with authors of the second doc, who are known but being protected from backlash here. The goal:

“If they’re responsible for a death, we firmly hope that justice is served for the family, and if kids and animals were harmed, we need justice for that too. It’s not enough to get them temporarily out of one hobby group and trust that they won’t just rebrand and come back.”

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Fangcon brings peace, love and music with a Woodstock theme, on November 6-10, 2014

by Patch O'Furr

 

FANGCON is “the only anthropomorphic convention located within the state of Tennessee”.  Draconis submitted an exciting notice about their third annual event, happening this weekend.

Personally, if I wasn’t hosting a paw-print furry Twister game myself this weekend… I’d make like a Husky and pounce on their “largest Fursuit Twister Mat the fandom has ever seen.”  Psst… Twister’s slogan is “The Game That Ties You Up in Knots.”  Teehee.   

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