Another star of Netflix’s hit documentary series “Tiger King” is headed to prison.
Bhagavan “Doc” Antle was sentenced to one year and one day behind bars, nearly two years after pleading guilty to trafficking exotic animals and money laundering, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
He was also ordered to pay a $55,000 fine, serve three years of supervised release and forfeit three chimpanzees and nearly $200,000 to the government.
AP
Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, who was arrested by the FBI, June 3, 2022, on federal money laundering charges.
Antle, 65, appeared in the first season of the massively successful docuseries in early 2020 and was featured as the star of its third season — “The Doc Antle Story” — which aired in December 2021.
In June 2023, the flamboyant animal trainer was convicted of illegally purchasing endangered lion cubs in Virginia for “display and profit” at The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.), also known as the Myrtle Beach Safari, a zoo he owned and operated in South Carolina.
Antle pleaded guilty in November 2023, admitting to directing the sale or purchase of two cheetah cubs, two lion cubs, two tigers and one juvenile chimpanzee — all of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act — between September 2018 and May 2020.
“Doc Antle portrayed himself as a conservationist. But in reality, he was a key player in the illegal chimpanzee trade, and he laundered more than half a million dollars through a complex web of deceit,” U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling for the District of South Carolina said in a statement Tuesday.
The show’s first season — “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” — became a pop culture phenomenon after it was released in the early days of the COVID lockdowns. It followed the rivalry between Oklahoma zoo owner Joe Exotic and Florida animal rights activist Carole Baskin.
Exotic, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving a 21-year federal prison sentence after he was convicted by a federal jury of plotting to murder Baskin.
Antle’s crimes are not related to those of Joe Exotic. According to prosecutors, Antle systematically orchestrated a complex network of illegal wildlife trafficking operations by disguising payments as charitable donations routed through his non-profit, The Rare Species Fund.
Dr. Bhagavan Antle With Hercules The Liger
Jonathan Wiggs/Boston Globe via Getty Images Doc Antle, a Virginia zoo owner featured in “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” has been indicted for wildlife trafficking.
“He was knowingly and illegally trading them as part of a black market that drives another black market of poaching and smuggling,” Prosecutor Patrick Duggan said in court Tuesday.
With News Wire Services
