Woman Found With Alligator In Yoga Pants Sentenced To Probation

In a bizarre twist of events, a woman in Florida pulled a small alligator from the yoga pants she had during a traffic stop. She also had in her possession many other illegally acquired wild animals. After court proceedings, she has been sentenced to probation after she pled guilty to four charges.

Prosecutors say the sheriff’s deputy stopped Ariel Machan Le Quire and Michael Clemons after Clemons ran a stop sign.

The pair told the authorities they were collecting frogs and snakes underneath an overpass and gave the police permission to search the vehicle and their bags.

The police then discovered 41 turtles in a backpack. When they asked Ariel if she had anything else deemed unusual on her person, she proceeded to pull a one-foot long alligator from her yoga pants.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission from then asked to take over the commission. Le Quire listed on an arrest report that she was homeless and living in Fort Myers and she then entered a guilty plea for possessing an American alligator. She also pled guilty to taking or possessing more than one turtle per day.

The third count was transporting more than one turtle and fourthly possessing soft-shell turtles.
In July, Le Quire was cited because she did not appear in court. Considering she had listed as homeless during booking, she was jailed on the 29th of July and held on a bond of $10,000. She was then released on Wednesday to face the judge for the four counts.

She was represented by a public defender and entered a plea of no contest.

She was found guilty on all accounts and after that sentenced to 24 months’ probation. She is going to have to complete 200 community service hours and make a donation of $500 to the Wildlife Alert Fund. The stop sign violation is still pending, though.

This represents a few of the incidences which have happened in the past few days involving alligators in Florida. The summer is the mating season, so there are bound to be many more events regarding human and alligator interactions in the next few months.

The actions of Le Quire are unexplainable to date as she has not given a logical reason why she had so many turtles in her car and an alligator on her person. Her listing as being homeless also triggered red flags considering her mental state.