A “furry” has been indicted on charges of forced labor trafficking in relation to allegations he enslaved a woman and forced her to make fetish pornography which from which he personally profited.
Austin Taylor Koeckeritz, 29, is being held on a $300,000 bond while awaiting trial on the federal charges. The US Department of Justice unsealed the indictment on January 19, revealing that Koeckeritz had trafficked an adult woman for nearly two years.
Koeckertiz, who was initially arrested in August of 2022, is currently being housed in the Dane County Jail, and will be tried on charges of human trafficking, third degree sexual assault and domestic abuse in federal court.
According to documents submitted by the Federal Defender Service on behalf of Koeckertiz in February, the charges against Koeckertiz were first brought after he was accused of human trafficking by an alleged victim. The victim had managed to alert her friend and her sister to her situation, stating that she was being held captive by Koeckertiz, and the two then went to police.
Koeckertiz and the victim are said to have initially been business partners, with the two launching an entity called The Boring Company, taking the same name as the entity owned by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, of whom Koeckeritz was reportedly a fan. But while Musk’s company focuses on novel inventions and infrastructure, Koeckertiz’s was centered around furry porn.
Furries are a community of individuals who enjoy fantasy materials featuring anthropomorphic animal characters. Some enthusiasts will spend thousands of dollars creating customized “suits” to take on the appearance of their favorite animal character, and many incorporate the characters into sexual or pornographic acts.
Koeckeritz’s victim was made to dress in a furry suit resembling a black and white-furred wolf while making erotic content, while Koeckeritz had his own costume taking on the appearance of a black wolf.
Koeckertiz’s Boring Company would function as a pimp-like entity which would have the victim make sexually explicit content for OnlyFans and other erotic subscription websites and then take a portion of the profits. But the victim told investigators she quickly lost her freedom, and was imprisoned in a room and forced to make videos daily. Koeckeritz would begin taking the entirety of her earnings, and refused to allow the victim contact with her family or friends.
The victim was pressured to make a minimum of $1,000 per day performing in the sex trade, and was coerced to make erotic content even when she was ill. According to court documents, the victim was only allowed “time off” if she recruited other young women to work for Koeckeritz from the local college. The victim was also told she could end her “work” early if she orally copulated Koeckeritz. She alleged that Koeckeritz used both violent and emotionally manipulative means of controlling her.
Before the first police interview, the victim said Koeckeritz had poured hot cooking grease on her. In another terrifying incident she recounted to police, Koeckeritz chased her around the house with an AR-15.
In addition to his federal charges centered around his alleged trafficking of the victim, Koeckeritz initially faced state charges as well. Those were dropped after a Pierce County Court determined the federal charges should take priority. But the state charges had included allegations that Koeckeritz had exposed a minor to sexually explicit content, with text messages reportedly showing that he had been encouraging a 15-year-old female relative to enter the “furry” sex trade.
As part of his business ventures, Koeckeritz operated social media accounts targeted towards the furry community — all of which are still live, but have been inactive since August of 2022 when he was arrested.
On TikTok, Koeckeritz’s furry-centered channel boasted a following of 160,000, and featured videos of Koeckeritz and a female who appears to be his victim. The TikTok handle is not being shared by Reduxx out of concern for the victim’s privacy.
Most of the videos featured lighthearted themes such as jokes and dancing. In the videos where the female furry appeared, she is usually seen wearing her mask, but normal clothing. Most of the outfits she appears in are revealing, prominently showing off her lean form.
On Koeckeritz’s Instagram, which had 13,000 followers, he reposted much of his content from TikTok as well as furry-related memes and photos. Some were distinctly erotic, and feature a theme of two male furry characters engaged in sexual activity.
While Koeckertiz is said to have had sexual involvement with women, poetry found by Reduxx written by him in 2019 suggests he had a number of male love interests he professed affection for and was homosexually oriented.
In one poem, titled “To Younger Me,” Koeckeritz laments over three men he had romantic interest in as a teen. In another, titled “He’s My Best Friend,” Koeckeritz identifies himself as gay in a poem about a male friend he identified an interest in.
“People use gay like a bad thing. Like loving someone is an insult,” he writes. “He is my best friend. He made me feel like tigers and stripes lived in the forest instead of my skin. I’ll never forget when you kissed my palm and said you’d always be here.”
His author profile on Letterpile states: “Austin Koeckeritz is always up for a challenge, especially when it means helping others,” before launching into a paragraph on life advice.
“All things are but a temporary state of being. Everything passes. Happiness. Suffering. Everything, the good and the bad altogether, is temporary. Nothing lasts indefinitely, not even this.”
Speaking to Reduxx on the case, licensed professional counsellor Jon K. Uhler offered his insight into Koeckeritz’s behavior, expressing a particular concern with respect to the accused’s alleged underage victim.
Uhler has been researching and working with paraphilias for 14 years, an interest which started when he was working with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. Uhler, who is currently running multiple sex offender treatment groups, has become a noted critic of the furry subculture, describing it as a gateway for more nefarious sexual predators to gain access to victims.
“I first learned about furries from pedophiles in sex offender treatment groups. One [pedophile] in particular who was a very heinous pedophile … shared with me that it was one of their favorite methods for gaining direct access to kids because they can hide their identity.”
Uhler says that, in his experience, furries are often individuals who participate in other harmful sexual behaviors. He states that he has observed that social media profiles belonging to furries often have the same “red flag indicators” as those belonging to child sexual abusers.
“By the time a guy is playing dress-up, it is highly likely – if not inevitable – that he is into much more deviant stuff online,” Uhler says. “It is very safe to assume that some man who is dressing up as a furry is into more deviant stuff.”
Uhler believes that men and women can drawn to the furry subculture for different reasons.
“I think for women it is social. Companionship. It is a social activity. For men, I feel it is an opportunity to be deviant,” Uhler says. “I have had ex-furries reach out to me and tell me about how sex-saturated it is.”
Though members of the furry community often claim there is no sexual component to their activity, Uhler rejects the claim and references evidence he has seen to the contrary throughout his professional career.
According to a 2019 entry in the Journal of Sexual Behavior, a large majority of surveyed furries reported non-heterosexual identities (84%), and virtually all of them claimed to have some degree of sexual motivation for participating in the furry subculture (99%).
“Given the high degree of deviance, both self-described and revealed whether in picture or by people who have exited, in the furry fan culture… it is simply not safe for to allow minors to be apart of [the furry subculture].”
Koeckertiz is not the first furry to be accused of a violent sexual crime since the start of the year.
On January 2, Reduxx reported on the case of Aaron Zeman, also known as Tadashi Kura Kojima, who was apprehended in Grand Island, Nebraska after kidnapping a 13-year-old boy. The boy had been the subject of an AMBER alert, and was spotted in Zeman’s car by a gas station attendant almost 800 miles from the victim’s home.
On social media, Zeman used the name Hunter Horny Fox, and describes himself as a “Gay/Demi Furry Fox.” He appeared in his profile photo wearing a “leather pup” mask, and often made highly sexual remarks about his teen victim on his account.
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