Miami, Florida – South Florida federal prosecutors have charged 40-year-old Prentiss K. Madden with receiving and possessing child pornography and with animal crushing, a federal crime that punishes acts of animal torture. Madden is a licensed veterinarian in Aventura, Florida.
The criminal complaint affidavit unsealed today contains the following allegations against Madden: Law enforcement agents received a Cyber Tip that an IP Address registered to Madden’s home in Miami repeatedly accessed a cloud-based file-sharing service containing images of child pornography. As part of the investigation, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant on Madden’s home. They discovered a cellular telephone alleged to belong to Madden that contained several sexually explicit videos and images of minors, as well as chats that discussed the sexual abuse of children and animals.
According to the affidavit, some of the chats contained images that appeared to be of Madden engaged in sexual activity with dogs. Agents also discovered over 1000 images of child pornography and other animal abuse in Madden’s cloud-based sharing account, says the court filing. The geolocation information to one of the images depicting alleged bestiality links to the animal hospital in Aventura where Madden serves as Medical Director and Veterinarian (Caring Hands Animal Hospital), according to the complaint affidavit.
The criminal complaint charges Madden with one count of child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography and one count of animal crushing.
If convicted, Madden faces up to 37 years in prison.
Local media spoke to people in the neighborhood who were shocked to learn of the allegations against Madden.
