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When the initial three of us (Katerina, Rachel and Michelle) set out to make our testimonies public, we each had a strong desire for them to be easily accessible and visible to women who were involved with Kevin Olliff, Tyler Lang, CAFT, or AL-ADL. This website is to help make that possible and to provide support for anyone who also experiences abuse from either of them. We will continue to add testimonies if and when other women come forward, and we urge you to reach out if you need private support as well.

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​So who is Kevin Olliff, who is Tyler Lang, and what is CAFT/LA-ADL?

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​Kevin and Tyler are best friends and activists who have been involved in the animal rights movement on and off for years. Kevin went to prison and Tyler faced probation time for releasing mink from fur farms, and have recently started their own activist group called Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT). They currently live in Los Angeles, California, and have been traveling state and country-wide to different cities to help with their CAFT protests, often seeking out women to sleep with in the process. Despite multiple women coming forward with their experiences of physical and emotional abuse, Kevin and Tyler continue to thrive within the animal rights community by using their positions within CAFT to seek women and any activists who they can prey upon, manipulate, and use for personal gain.

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CAFT also recently (November 2022) started another group, called

LA-ADL, or Animal Defense League LA. This is an LA chapter

that is part of the larger grassroots group, ADL. They claim that

they started this new group in order to more easily collaborate with

other animal rights groups in LA under a different name than

CAFT (likely because many CAFT members have been banned from

other animal rights groups, and many groups do not want to work

with CAFT due to these testimonies). 

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(See screenshots) Their caption reads:

"LA's chapter of the Animal Defense League. We are a grassroots

organization that is focused on animal liberation. We are currently

working on CAFT USA's campaign against LVMH and supporting

multiple local campaigns from other groups in the LA area.

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Some of the folks behind this page also work directly with other orgs including CAFT USA, some do not. This org was created to make it easier to organize and collaborate here in LA. Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade is solely focused on international fur campaigns such as LVMH. LA Animal Defense League (LA-ADL) will be focused on whatever is happening right here in Los Angeles. Fur demos, outreach events, community gatherings and more."

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Restorative justice and accountability is what we have sought from Kevin and Tyler, but instead of taking any accountability for the harms that they have caused, they have sought revenge through retaliation.

Tyler and Kevin are no longer welcome to attend or participate in several animal rights organizations, including Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Animal Alliance Network, and the LA Save chapter, until they take the necessary steps towards accountability. Unrelated to activism, Kevin and Tyler are also permanently banned from the dating site OkCupid after being notified of their predatory behavior. 

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We urge you to read each of the five women’s testimonies, and share them with anyone who comes into contact with Kevin and Tyler. We cannot keep our communities safe while allowing serial abusers who refuse to take accountability to be in them. This isn’t about “cancel culture.” Calling it that only minimizes the damages that these men have caused, and it diverts the blame onto survivors for the consequences these men face for their own actions.

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Tyler and Kevin are the only two people to blame for what they did, and only they have the power to take full accountability for it. We welcome that path if they ever choose to take it.

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The following are what we would like to see from Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff. This does not mean that if they were to do these things, all harm would be forgiven or erased. Rather, these are some first steps to opening a door for healing to start happening and for prevention to be possible.

 

If you know Kevin or Tyler or if you do activism with them, please try to hold them accountable for the following:

Kevin

• Publicly admit to the abuse and accept responsibility for the harm he has caused. After years of gaslighting his victims and spreading rumors to discredit anyone who dares to come forward, this is the bare minimum Kevin could do to begin the process of making amends.

• Quit drinking, especially around women and other activists. Alcohol doesn’t “make” Kevin abusive - but his drinking is a recurring theme in all of the recent testimonies, and he consistently displays aggressive behavior while drunk. Even if he takes steps to address his other issues, he likely will continue to abuse the women around him if he is unable or unwilling to get his drinking under control.

• Take any necessary steps to treat mental health issues.

• Enroll in an anger management course.

• Refrain from staying with women while traveling. For too long, Kevin has used his position to gain access to female activists around the country under the guise of needing a place to stay. 

 

Tyler

• Publicly admit to sexual misconduct and his role in enabling Kevin’s abuse. This should also include a public condemnation of any attempts by his supporters to undermine and silence survivors. Even if his friends deny our experiences, retaliating against those who come forward only discourages other survivors from speaking out and allows abuse to proliferate within the animal rights community.

• Implement a zero tolerance policy for sexual misconduct and abuse within CAFT. Guidelines need to be developed with the input of women outside Tyler’s social circle, and should safeguard against potential coverups and abuses of power (e.g. by enlisting a neutral third party to investigate allegations of misconduct).

• Take any necessary steps to treat mental health issues.

• CAFT should have full transparency in disclosing leadership and their own involvement in CAFT.

• Ban alcohol and drugs at CAFT social events. Tyler has repeatedly shown that he can’t control his or his friends’ behavior while drinking. If he wants to cultivate a safe environment for women and survivors, he can start by making all CAFT events alcohol and drug-free.

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Additions after the initial statements made by Katerina, Rachel, Michelle D, and Jane Doe:

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• A public apology with a statement recognizing the damage that his response, as well as others, has caused to the MeToo movement and to other survivors feeling comfortable to come forward.

• Publicly retracting support for Sidney J’s statement in particular, for her explicit false claim that she was an eye witness or that Rachel had been the one to made advances onto Tyler first.

• Take a minimum of 6 weeks of consent classes and provide an understanding of the difference between perceived consent and informed and enthusiastic consent, as well and an understanding that people can change their mind on what they initially thought was consensual after receiving new information or processing what happened. In addition, Tyler is to provide a genuine understanding that once one person feels that it wasn’t consensual, it wasn’t, and he doesn’t get to decide that it was.

• Start a reconciliation process with Rachel for his denial that he committed consent violations with her.

• Committing and providing proof of reaching out to everyone on Rachel, Michelle, and Katerina’s friends list who he contacted with his initial response statement and providing an explanation as to why that was wrong and harmful.

• Clarify and stop the false rumor that Rachel contacted his work.

 

It’s easy to dismiss abuse as being a “personal issue” between two people, but we must remember that violence is a community problem that requires community-based solutions. We can’t trust abusive people to hold themselves accountable - protecting women and other vulnerable people is a responsibility that we all share.

 

The following suggestions are steps we can all take to address and prevent violence in our movement:
 

• Learn to identify common signs of abuse. This information is widely available online. Please see our Resources page if you don’t know where to start.

• Don’t ignore aggressive, controlling, or otherwise concerning behavior. If you are unable to directly intervene (i.e. for safety reasons), you can check in with the victim privately, initiate discussion with the abusive person after they’ve calmed down, or report misconduct to event organizers.

• Make sure everyone gets home safely after an event, especially if folks have been drinking. Check in with everyone to make sure they have a ride home and/or a safe place to stay.

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Remember that supporting victims means holding their abusers accountable. We sincerely appreciate every supportive message we’ve received since sharing our testimonies, but we hope you also confront Kevin and Tyler about their behavior. People are counting on your silence so please speak up on behalf of any potential victims. These conversations might be uncomfortable in the moment, but these are necessary growing pains to keep our community safe.

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