Woman Arrested For Alleged Role In Animal Cruelty Fetish Pornography
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Police arrested a woman Friday on eight felony counts of animal cruelty after they learned she was featured in pornography that showed her killing and injuring animals.
Sara Zamora, 28, allegedly played a feature role in several pornographic videos in which she tortured or killed animals including rabbits and chickens.
The Miami-Dade police report detailed the act and stated the animals endured extreme pain during the filming of the video.
"The chicken is enduring extreme pain and suffering during this process," the report stated.
Investigators with the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals alerted police to the videos in December 2012, prompting an investigation that spanned Miami-Dade and Lee Counties.
"It's certainly horrifying. I mean these are sadistic people inflicting gruesome suffering on innocent and vulnerable and helpless animals," said PETA's Cruelty Casework Director Stephanie Bell.
Zamora appeared before a judge Saturday where she was held without bond on the basis of unrelated charges including grand theft, battery, and drug charges. She was already in jail, when she was arrested on the animal cruelty charges Friday.
In court, it was noted that it was not clear when the videos were made, and a public defender questioned whether the statute of limitations had expired.
Bell said someone tipped off PETA after seeing the videos. She said they were made sometime before the end of 2012, but she's not sure exactly when.
According to the police report, the video was filmed at the South Miami-Dade home of Adam Redford who is listed as a co-defendant, but had not been charged in the animal cruelty case in Miami-Dade County as of Saturday night.
Redford later moved to Lee County. Jail records show Redford was arrested there last year for causing cruel death, pain, or suffering to animals. According to court records he paid fees or fines and was given probation.
A reporter with CBS4 News partner, The Naples Daily News approached Redford at his home Saturday night, but he threw a suitcase in his van and took off, telling her "I don't have anything to say."
According CBS4 News partner, The Miami Herald: Redford, a boat captain who claims on his website to have filmed a variety of videos "related to South Florida fishing," said he knew nothing about Zamora's case.
"I haven't seen or talked to her in close to a year," Redford told the Herald.
Zamora goes by the name Gloria Shynez on the internet and claims to have been modeling since the age of 19 on the site Model Mayhem with flexible rates, according to the Herald.
If convicted on the animal cruelty charges, she could face up to five years in prison on each count.
According to officials, Redford is on probation in a 2013 case on charges of causing the cruel death and torturing animals in Lee County. On Friday, he acknowledged the earlier arrest was a matter of public record but that "it had been resolved", The Herald reported.
So-called "crush" animal torture videos aren't new and have been the target of past legal crackdowns. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law that outlawed depictions of "intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed," saying it was too broad and violated the right to free speech.
The federal law had been aimed at videos that often depict women slowly crushing animals to death "with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes," sometimes while "talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter," the opinion read.
But the 2010 decision did not apply to the actual acts themselves of extreme cruelty to animals — and did not preclude the passing of future laws that narrowly applied to crush videos.
The Naples Daily News and The Miami Herald contributed to this report.