'Tiger King' Star Bhagavan 'Doc' Antle Faces Money Laundering Charges In South Carolina
Animal trainer and “Tiger King” star Bhagavan “Doc ” Antle faces federal money laundering charges Monday in South Carolina.
Antle, 62, also the owner of a Myrtle Beach Safari, was arrested Friday by the FBI and reportedly remains in custody at the J. Rueben Long Detention Center in Conway, South Carolina. The charges are related to money laundering but the full details on the charges will be formally announced in court, a source told the Associated Press on Saturday.
“It’s fitting that 'Doc' Antle is behind bars after years of locking up the endangered animals he uses in tawdry photo ops,” Debbie Metzler, associate director of PETA’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement division, said in a statement.
“His legal woes are mounting, as PETA recently blew the whistle on his apparent ‘charity’ scam, and the end to his reign of terrorizing tiger cubs can’t come soon enough,” said Metzler.
Antle starred in the 2020Netflix documentary “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” The series drew heightened attention during the pandemic.
Joseph Maldonado Passage also known as “Tiger King” was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to 22 years in prison. He was convicted for hiring people two different times to kill Carole Baskin — a tiger activist who had a feud with Maldonado-Passage — and also for killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records.
Maldonado-Passage has attempted many times to be released from prison now that his name has come to fame. In November, he announced that he has prostate cancer.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.