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‘Tiger King’ star Doc Antle fined $10K, but avoids prison time in Virginia animal trafficking case
Gavin Stone, The Virginian-Pilot
Wed, October 4, 2023 at 1:17 PM EDT
A celebrity zoo operator featured in the Netflix series “Tiger King” was fined $10,000 and banned from any business operations in Virginia for five years, but avoided prison time, for illegally buying endangered lion cubs in Frederick County.
Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, 63, owner of the Myrtle Beach Safari zoo in South Carolina, was convicted in June by a Frederick County jury on two felony counts each of wildlife trafficking and conspiring to traffic wildlife. A judge sentenced him to two years in prison with time suspended for each charge, to run concurrently, and fined him the maximum of $2,500 for each charge.
Antle has been placed on unsupervised probation for five years and is not allowed to “work, own, possess, broker, buy, sell, trade, transfer, barter or donate any exotic animals” in Virginia during that time. He was facing up to 20 years in prison for the charges.
Antle had been under investigation by the Animal Law Unit of the attorney general’s office since a 2019 raid of Wilson’s Wild Animal Park near Winchester by the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, according to The Winchester Star. The charges stemmed from allegations he had illegally bought three endangered lion cubs in Frederick County to put them on display at his zoo.
Neither Antle nor the owner of Wilson’s, Keith Wilson, had permits to transfer ownership of lions, the Star reported.
“This case sends a clear message that bad actors will not be tolerated in the Commonwealth,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a news release.
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