LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — An Oregon man who moved to Henderson has been sentenced to federal prison after being convicted of torturing and murdering monkeys.
Court documents state that from January 2022 to February 2023, 48-year-old David Christopher Noble conspired with others to send multiple online payments to people overseas to fund the production of videos depicting the torture, mutilation, and murder of monkeys.
According to the Justice Department, in an online animal abuse group, Noble "expressed his enjoyment of videos depicting the torture and murder of long-tailed macaques" and that members of the group referred to them as "rats".
In a message sent in June 2022, Noble wrote the only thing he did not like in abuse videos was when the torturers "kill the rats too quickly" and they should "keep it alive, make it suffer, make sure it knows to fear you and that you end its existence at any time." In another message, Noble wrote "the noises they make from pain and abuse are some of my favorite sounds."
In February 2023, investigators searched Noble's home in Prineville, Oregon, which is about three hours southeast of Portland, and found approximately 50 videos depicting animal abuse, along with several firearms and ammunition.
After his home was searched, Noble moved to Henderson.
On May 18, 2023, a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon returned an indictment with Noble facing multiple charges.
On June 13, 2023, he was arrested in Henderson and he was extradited back to Oregon.
On January 10, 2024, Noble pleaded guilty to conspiring to engage in animal crushing and creating and distributing animal crush videos. In legal terms, the term "animal crushing" means actual conduct in which one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury.
On Thursday, Noble was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.
"The victims in this case cannot speak for themselves, but the impact of the grotesque violence brought upon them is unmistakable. At the direction of David Noble and his co-conspirators, the producers of these animal abuse videos not only killed monkeys but did so in a way that extended their pain and suffering as long as possible," said Nathan J. Lichvarcik, Chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office Eugene and Medford Branch Offices.
"David Noble's depraved actions not only inflicted unspeakable agony upon innocent creatures but also tainted the very essence of humanity's moral fiber," said Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer. "Under Noble's direction, the production and distribution of grotesque animal abuse videos represented a dark descent into the abyss of cruelty and exploitation."
