Two more indicted in case of former Columbus teacher who helped make 'monkey crush' videos

CINCINNATI, Ohio (WCMH) – Eight months after a former Columbus City Schools teacher was sent to prison for his role in creating and sharing videos showing monkeys being tortured and abused, two alleged accomplices were indicted on federal charges.

Katrina Favret from Tennessee and Robert Craig from North Carolina were indicted for their roles in working with former high school teacher Ronald Bedra of Etna, according to unsealed court documents released this week by federal prosecutors.

The documents state that Favret and Craig conspired to make and share videos showing juvenile and adult monkeys being dismembered and sexually abused, what's known as a "monkey crush" or "animal crush" video. They allegedly used encrypted chat applications to pay people in Indonesia willing to commit the requested acts of torture on camera.

Animal crushing is defined under federal law as “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.”

Bedra, 43, was a career technology teacher at Linden McKinley STEM Academy. In April 2024, shortly after he resigned, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to create and distribute “animal crush” videos and also mailed a thumb drive containing 64 videos to person Wisconsin. That October, he was sentenced to over four years in prison.

Bedra was actually the second man within two months from Ohio to be charged with animal crushing.

Nicholas Dryden of Cincinnati was charged in June 2024 with the creation of such videos, as well as with production and receipt of a visual depiction of the sexual abuse of children, because a minor was paid to abuse the monkeys.