R.C. Fox arrested for child pornography, furries question fandom connections.

by Patch O'Furr

High profile fur R.C. Fox is in legal trouble. When interviewed by police outside his home, “he admitted there ‘might be some’ child pornography on his computer” and “he has ‘a very small interest in’ pornography depicting children and admitted to having about 50 videos containing it on his computer.”  R.C. was known for meet organizing and media appearances that bring a spotlight now. Here’s a long video about it by Ragehound. The case is in court.

It brought in a reader tip – (thanks Meow Mix):

Recently there’s been some furries involved in meets and cons popping up in the news for pedophilia and child porn. There’s the RebelWolf/LupineFox ring, and more recently R.C. Fox has been charged with child porn possession. (Location/photo/birthdate in the news matches R.C. Fox).

These sorts of charges have come down on furries before, and the fandom has in the past welcomed such people back, only for them to offend again. One of the more well known cases is Growly, convicted in 2001 of having sex with a 14 year old, and after release was banned from furaffinity for a conversation with a 16 year old. Despite this, he still is allowed to volunteer for conventions and furmeets.

I haven’t posted about the Lupinefox/Rebelwolf ring since 1) Wikifur has the basics 2) It’s still in court 3) I looked but didn’t find new info 4) A victim may not want overexposure. There’s been one guilty plea so far. I hope they do justice to anyone involved with something as heinous as abusing a kid.

For context, as far as I’ve heard, people who went to meets in common with them were horrified to learn the story when it came out. And while fandom is having strong growth, it can proportionately raise such issues the same as anywhere. It would be extra worrisome to find higher-up coverup (Catholic church style) but that’s different from a few friends hiding stuff with each other.  So far it seems most fit for courts and mainstream news handled by pros.

R.C. Fox is out on bail and can use the internet. He tried to delete his Wikifur page on 9/22, perhaps following a 9/19 arrest. On 10/17 after this got a lot of fandom attention, his twitter account was deleted. That case is still in court too but so far it looks open and shut. One guy reportedly admitted doing something wrong and will have consequences depending on court findings.

There have been similar stories in the past with Frank Gembeck, Alan T. Panda, and Mitch Beiro. They were high profile and made furry news without getting ignored, excused or welcomed back. I haven’t seen issues with those beyond what the courts decided, or with reoffending, or deeper fandom connections beyond problems people have everywhere. There can be another side to these issues as well, with a case of alleged injustice related to a minor impersonating an adult in the @SaveOurSisk story.

The Growly story is a rare case of someone back in fandom and raising concerns over a decade later. He put out a statement after finishing parole in 2007 about pleading No Contest to one charge of sending a nude pic. Contrary to rumor, that isn’t a guilty plea or a finding of worse. Perhaps the older person involved (who has since died) was more responsible and the court found the one charge to be low level since they don’t go easy on that stuff. The claim about chatting a 16 year old may seem shady but the facts are debatable, trolling happens, a real person hasn’t complained and I’m not a lawyer. About volunteering for events, 10 years after finishing parole, the issue isn’t hidden and he’s being treated as a person who did the time and is wanting to make amends under watch of organizers. There are myths about reoffending when it can be less likely than with other crimes. Part of the issue is how understaffed cons rely on those who step up, so if you go to cons, they’re serving your demand. One way to mitigate concerns is to encourage more people to volunteer so they can be more selective.

It’s complicated. 

Furries aren’t alone. Hollywood has a wave of abuse stories right now, and furry animators have told me about the climate making them quieter about their hobby. Meanwhile in fandom, these stories can ignite drama.  Is it sensational to simply publish facts? Of course not. But is it sensationalizing to connect furry to the stories?  Do they do that with Star Trek fans?

Yes, last decade a supposed Star Trek/pedophilia connection got a lot of press. This Popmatters article takes it apart; comparing bad logic to a blind person aiming a shotgun at the topic, making an “intellectual blender” about sexual minorities, and “analytical style that seems the most pathological, paranoid and desperately seeking the sexual in the textual for the pure sake of finding it there.”

But furries have a unique community. You might do Spock Eyebrows if 2/3 of Star Trek fans were LGBT, and 80% of those find relationships with other Star Trek fans. That’s a survey finding by the IARP about furries meeting furries. The point is that having a real community can make it part of conversation about events connected to members. It’s all part of larger fandom and deeper talk about toxic aspects or how to improve them. We could also mention how DragonCon was founded and run by notorious child predator Ed Kramer, or the Geek Social Fallacies. A furry issue is just one of many we can talk about like grown ups.

Still, it’s complicated to publish crime info because:

  • There’s a risk of collateral damage with a group where outsiders have done real sensationalism, and members are closely linked. Would it affect a fursuit maker to link their very recognizable work with this story?
  • The whole fandom shouldn’t be associated with encouraging or being a slippery slope to crime that happens in any group. If people act on their own to exploit it, that shouldn’t be treated like giving them a license to do it… unless it really is.
  • There’s a risk of falsely conflating crime with harmless fetish or sexual minorities. Curiousity and acceptance comes with an average age for group members that coincides with experimenting and being young adults. Positive support they give each other shows responsibility about it.

The Furry Raiders and license against consequences: “1’s and 0’s on a hard drive never hurt anyone”

When the stories are complicated, it’s good to focus on individual doers and the power they have. A story might not need more exposure if it’s an open and shut case for mainstream courts and news. But it might if there’s another layer about toxic attitudes and leadership. That’s why these were published here:

Those are real examples for how toxic leadership intensifies bad personal choices.  Not by furry fandom, but in a rejected cult-like fringe.  Here it is on display with the R.C. Fox story, from altfur/Furry Raiders member Dionysius. (See also additional screenshots.)

Less than an hour after Dionysius excused owning illegal files, Foxler made him a Furry Raiders admin, then went on to promote him as doing charity for kids.

The Furry Raiders don’t just put antisocial behavior in charge of their group, they have a habit of trolling cons with it (in this case while ghosting.)

UPDATE: Kodywulf was banned from Twitter for violent threats on 4/30/18

During this incident at Furreality, people were worried about the Raiders putting up cameras looking out of their hotel room because that’s what the Vegas shooter did days earlier. (Then 10 days after this event, an altfur threatened to do mass murder, egged on by another member, resulting in an FBI report and account ban.)

There’s a clear problem when a group ethic comes from bad leadership. It isn’t just one weird example, it’s a pervasive pattern of license against consequences:

Such Sovereign Citizen attitude about laws is how people find themselves in news about breaking them.  There’s more to this, too.

Kahuki, the ex-CEO who sent SovCit threats on behalf of RMFC, had a partner Ivan Otter on staff of the con. In 2011, Ivan was convicted for a child pornography offense. A Colorado fur with an organizer role alleged to me that the files were actually from the collection of someone close to Ivan. Kahuki posted about it:

Shifting excuses.

Kahuki’s own sex offense has many defenses that vary radically from one person to the next. This 2008 podcast dates to when he was forced to step down as RMFC chair. It repeats a sanitized story (at 5:30) that he was 23 and his boyfriend was just under age of consent (in fact he was 30 when convicted in 1993). When the topic revived in 2017, his roommate Scorch said it was old news and there was no sex (a comment claims something else was hushed.) Other versions come from Furry Raiders Telegram – and a private message sent to Deo:

There’s a whole other topic from vocal defender of the Furry Raiders, 2 Gryphon. His video about them complains at length: “at least have the common decency … to find out what you’re talking about.” That makes sense… when it means asking people who tell a consistent story in good faith. So now consider the time when 2 found himself in a similar predicament with a partner. Here’s where it gets more and more interesting to see who he picks to attack and who to defend. (Supposedly this stuff comes from a comedian, with no punch line in sight.)

In 2012, 2 Gryphon posted a journal declaring that molesters are “the saviors of their own victims.” It trashed victims of child predator Jerry Sandusky for acting like “grown men turned into blubbering, sobbing children” who should move on and get over it. Then, within a day of the posting, like a miraculous voodoo prophecy, there was an FBI raid for child pornography at his home with his partner Toast Rabbit.

The story returned with a vengence in 2016, when 2 Gryphon found himself defending Toast on his youtube channel. 2 claimed that the FBI had recently arrested Toast for child pornography because he mistakenly downloaded one zip file of “shock” images that he “deleted immediately” and had no interest in.

In his video, 2 protests the legal system for “ruining people’s lives that don’t deserve it”. He attacks “the SJW’s out there” who he fears will judge Toast and himself with “a wave of hate”.  He says “I want to get this out there now, about what happened, so that there actually can be a record of officially what’s going on.”

The problem is, the story about one mistake download falls apart when compared with court documents. They charge Toast with distribution of illegal files in December 2011, and receipt of files months later in February 2012. The charges were not for happening just once as 2 claimed. Files depicting child pornography were found on multiple devices, and distribution before receiving is hard to call a mistake. Was 2 Gryphon being a blubbering, sobbing child about consequences?

That tweet is from April 10, 2017, the day I published about RMFC and Kahuki and the con closed 12 hours later. We know this shit:

Furry Raiders at Kahuki’s house.

To recap: ex-CEO Kahuki and his partner Ivan Otter and the Furry Raiders and their founder Foxler and admin Dionysius and their defender 2 Gryphon and his partner Toast Rabbit were all vocally excusing or involved in child exploitation. Furries may oppose it and understand consequences, but something smells bad with a fringe group that has shady fascination with teens and does projection about others excusing it. It’s like they come with problems as firmly attached as their armbands.

To clarify the question about fandom connections: the issue isn’t whether someone is popular, or even has a bad past if they make amends. The issue is how it’s treated by a group ethic and it’s leadership.

2 Gryphon’s “Kill yourself” message (which he often denies making) brings up a footnote. In September 2017, yet another furry was implicated by a suicide note describing being caught for illegal files and having no escape. There’s a topic for another day about better solutions that allow redemption, but in this case, the guy didn’t stick around to lie about it.  It seems that even dead people understand cause and effect better than one small fringe of fandom.

What a web it makes when altfurries, the Furry Raiders, and friends keep springing to the defense of exploitation and child pornography. It’s more than relatively petty SovCit contrarianism like refusing to register your car.  It’s more than just loyalty to their own friends who keep getting caught up in it. While they conflate “SJW’s” and things being “too PC” together with the issue of respecting laws, what’s behind it all is a stance that only their rights matter, and nobody else’s. Including children’s.

This isn’t about furry fandom, but it’s in the shadow of it. If you love furry stuff and don’t support this, make your voice heard with your local meets and cons. And consider using the Altfurry Blocklist as a pro-active solution. Times are changing while the fandom is having healthy growth, and the too-small-to-bother, stuck-in-the-90’s ways are passing.

Perhaps I will be attacked for naming a group who troll for attention until it’s more than trolling. So let me add a personal note about why I don’t care if they try. While researching this I found dark stuff I won’t link because it adds no new info, just a risk of misuse. There was a 2009 news article with many furries saying “we’re not like that” about a predator, which seems unremarkable, until you realize the main photo of the story is someone who just went to jail for sexually trafficking their own child, pictured years before being caught. Then there’s a closed gallery of photos I was able to get in and look at. Nothing explicit, just pictures of that child victim at their birthday party, surrounded by fursuiters and in their own small suit being carried by the abuser. Those 1s and 0s hurt me a lot and it wasn’t even someone I know. Now consider attention-getting power and what it’s good for.

UPDATE: click through for an excellent thread about child grooming by the Furry Raiders; and a few examples of how they work. UPDATE 2: The thread was @edgedestroys trying to help a 16 year old who was recruited into the Raiders. Edge was targeted for false mass reporting to take down his account by exploiting a Twitter weakness. Have a few other tweets.

Thanks for reading and supporting the site. Come back for lighter stuff soon like a TV animator interview you should see if you like cartoon werewolves.