The FBI Arrested”Tiger King’s” Doc Antle On Money Laundering Charges In South Carolina
If you’re one of the millions who’ve ashamedly watched Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, then you’re familiar with Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, one of the shadier figures in the docuseries. It takes a lot to stand out as one of the shittier people in the Tiger King-verse, because the big cat/ratchet zoo community seems full of messy tricks. However, Doc has now been caught by the FBI instead of just being caught by our collective eyerolls.
Doc, slimy rival of Joe Exotic and owner of Myrtle Beach Safari, was arrested by the FBI on Friday, June 3, and is being detained at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Horry County, S.C., according to Yahoo! Entertainment. While the FBI has not publicly stated what Doc is in hot, tiger piss-filled pool water for, a person familiar with the case told The Associated Press that it’s federal money laundering and he’ll appear in court today to face the charges. via AP:
The charges against Antle, 62, were expected to be formally announced during a court proceeding Monday afternoon in Florence, South Carolina. The charges relate to allegations of money laundering, a person familiar with the matter told the AP on Saturday. The person could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
This isn’t the first time Doc has been pinched by the law. Since 1989 he’s received over 35 violations from the USDA for mistreating animals in his care, and in October 2020, he was indicted on wildlife trafficking charges. PETA was also pissed and wanted an investigation opened after they saw pics of Larsa Pippen dipping her thirsty ass into a pool with one of his tigers. And PETA also asked the IRS to look into Doc’s alleged shady money schemes last month. via AP:
In May, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked the IRS to probe Antle’s Rare Species Fund, a nonprofit raising money for wildlife conservation. PETA alleges he uses some of the fund’s money to subsidize his safari site in Socastee outside Myrtle Beach.
“It’s fitting that “Doc” Antle is behind bars after years of locking up the endangered animals he uses in tawdry photo ops. 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 Debbie Metzler, associate director of PETA’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement division, in a statement.
Aside from the laws he’s broken, we’ve seen in both the original Tiger King and also Doc’s spinoff, Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story, that he’s done all kinds of other questionable things–like being a fake doctor/geriatric fuckboy, using his poor, sad tigers to pick up women with daddy issues to join his harem, and just the general state of his facial hair–to name a few. Joe Exotic hasn’t crawled out from beneath his prison rock to comment on Doc Antle’s arrest (he’s probably too busy divorcing his most recent last husband while simultaneously being on the hunt to find another), but I’m sure he’d call him “that bitch” and then pivot to a tirade about his own innocence.
Pic: Harry County Sheriff’s Office