Diane Aileen Chaffin pleased no contest to three felony animal cruelty counts Monday, in a case which brought crush videos to light and stirred a bid for federal legislation and a protest led by Hollywood veteran Mickey Rooney.
Chaffin was sentenced to serve either a year in jail or a year's community service , plus three years' probation.
The 30-year-old actress and 48-year-old Gary Lynn Thomason were arrested in August, following a year-long probe of crush videos, which feature erotically-clad women crushing small animals to death and are sold ordinarily over the Internet.
Chaffin was said to have starred in The Tails of Charlie's Ankles, featuring a woman in high-heeled sandals and other such shoes taunting and then crushing mice. The video was shown during her preliminary hearing.
Thomason, said to have directed this and other crush films, has been free on $30,000 bail. He has a Nov. 16 trial date.
The case prompted a Simi Valley protest in late August. Congressman Elton Gallegly introduced a bill to ban crush videos, and Rooney - a long-time animal rights activist - led the protesters in demanding an end to the films on humanitarian grounds. Gallegly said the crush films had grown into a cottage industry approaching nearly $1 million a year, with individual videos selling as high as $100.
