Latest 'Tiger King' twist finds 'Doc' Antle sentenced to 1 year in prison for animal trafficking

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — “Tiger King” star Bhagavan “Doc” Antle is going to prison — but not for as long as prosecutors wanted — after admitting he broke federal law buying endangered animals to keep at his zoo in South Carolina.

Antle, 65, was sentenced to one year and one day behind bars and fined $55,000 on Tuesday, nearly two years after he pleaded guilty to trafficking in exotic animals and money laundering. He entered his plea in November 2023.

It was likely the end to the legal dramas that surrounded "Tiger King," the Netflix true crime documentary that captivated a country shut down by COVID-19.

The star, Joe Exotic, is serving a 21-year federal prison sentence for trying to hire two different men to kill the other star, Carole Baskin. Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was a collector and private zookeeper from Oklahoma and Baskin, runs Big Cat Rescue in Florida.

Antle appeared in the first season with Exotic and Baskin and was the star of the show's third season.

Antle's crimes were unrelated. He laundered money used in a human smuggling scheme because he needed large amounts of cash quickly to buy animals like chimpanzees, lions, tigers, cheetahs and other creatures, Prosecutor Patrick Duggan said. These animals are illegal to sell because they are endangered, and their high prices could encourage poachers to steal them from the wild, Duggan explained.

“He was knowingly and illegally trading them as part of a black market that drives another black market of poaching and smuggling,” Duggan said in court Tuesday.

Antle's lawyers requested a sentence of just probation or home confinement, saying their client needed to care for the 150 exotic animals that consume 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of meat a day at his Myrtle Beach Safari. They said many of the animals only respond to Antle.

About 25 friends and family packed a federal courtroom in Charleston. Several told Judge Joseph Dawson III that Antle was generous and caring. They said he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poaching and preserve wild habitats for tigers, lions and chimpanzees.

The judge was swayed. Federal guidelines called for about two years in prison, to which prosecutors agreed. But Dawson said, although Antle broke federal law, all the evidence pointed to him caring for animals.

Antle apologized at the end of his sentencing hearing for causing problems for his life's work.

“I made a mistake, I did stupid things,” Antle said, adding, “I hope I'll be able to pull it back together for everybody.”

Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari was known for charging hundreds or thousands of dollars to let people pet and hold baby animals like lions, tigers and monkeys that were so young they were still being bottle-fed. Customers would pay $200 for five minutes and photos with a baby chimp or $7,000 for a sleepover. Antle would sometimes ride into tours on an elephant.

The zoo remains open by reservation only.

Prosecutors said Antle sold or bought cheetahs, lions, tigers and a chimpanzee without the proper paperwork for a decade. They said he also laundered more than $500,000 so he could quickly get cash to buy more animals.

Antle knows federal law well and was able to avoid prosecution for years, prosecutors said. He would accept a large “donation” for an animal to his conservation foundation. He would claim to keep the animal in the same state he bought it, but then move it to his Myrtle Beach zoo, prosecutors said.

The FBI was listening to Antle’s phone calls with an informant as he explained a baby chimpanzee could easily cost $200,000. Private zookeepers can charge hundreds of dollars for photos with docile young primates or other animals, but the profit window is only open for a few years before the growing animals can no longer be safely handled.

“I had to get a monkey, but the people won’t take a check. They only take cash. So what do you do?” Antle said according to a transcript of the phone call in court papers.

Antle will have to give up three chimpanzees he bought as part of his plea deal.

Two of Antle's employees have already been sentenced for their roles in his schemes.

Meredith Bybee was given a year of probation for selling a chimpanzee while Andrew “Omar” Sawyer, who prosecutors said helped Antle launder money, was given two years of probation.

Jason Clay, a Texas private zoo owner, pleaded guilty to illegally selling a primate and was sentenced to four months in prison, while charges were dropped against California ranch owner Charles Sammut.

Bhagavan "Doc" Antle leaves the Charleston federal courthouse Tuesday, July 8, 2025 pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges in 2023, for illegally trafficking animals and trying to cover it up by laundering the money in Charleston, S.C. (Andrew Whitaker/The Post And Courier via AP)

Bhagavan "Doc" Antle leaves the Charleston federal courthouse Tuesday, July 8, 2025 pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges on Nov. 6, 2023, for illegally trafficking animals and trying to cover it up by laundering the money in Charleston, S.C. (Andrew Whitaker/The Post And Courier via AP)

Bhagavan “Doc” Antle from the Netflix Tiger King documentary, center, reaches out to a supporter after he was sentenced to a year and a day in prison on federal animal trafficking and money laundering charges on Tuesday, July 8, 2025 in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

FILE - Joseph Maldonado answers a question during an interview at the zoo he runs in Wynnewood, Okla., on Aug. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - This image provided by the Horry County Sheriff's Office in Conway, S.C., shows Bhagavan "Doc" Antle, a wild animal trainer who was featured in the popular Netflix series "Tiger King." (Horry County Sheriff's Office via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bob Weir, the guitarist and singer who as an essential member of the Grateful Dead helped found the sound of the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s and kept it alive through decades of tours and marathon jams, has died. He was 78.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” a statement on his Instagram page posted Saturday said. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

Weir joined the Grateful Dead — originally the Warlocks — in 1965 in San Francisco at just 17 years old. He would spend the next 30 years playing rhythm guitar on virtually nonstop tours alongside fellow singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

“Longevity was never a major concern of ours,” Weir said when the Dead got the Grammys’ MusiCares Person of the Year honor last year. “Spreading joy through the music was all we ever really had in mind, and we got plenty of that done.”

Weir wrote or co-wrote and sang lead vocals on Dead classics including “Sugar Magnolia,” “One More Saturday Night” and “Mexicali Blues.”

After Garcia’s death, Weir would be the Dead's most recognizable face. In the decades since, he kept playing with other projects that kept alive the band's music and legendary fan base, including Ratdog, The Other Ones, and Dead & Company.

Weir’s death leaves drummer Bill Kreutzmann as the only surviving original member. Founding bassist Phil Lesh died in 2024. The band's other drummer, Mickey Hart, practically an original member since joining in 1967, is also alive at 82. The fifth founding member, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, died in 1973.

Dead & Company, featuring former members and guitarist and singer John Mayer, played a series of concerts for the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary in July at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, drawing some 60,000 fans a day for three days.

Born Robert Hall Parber in San Francisco in 1947, Weir would take on the last name of the adoptive parents who raised him in nearby Atherton.

He had dyslexia that went undiagnosed at the time, struggled in school as a child and was kicked out of several institutions. At a Colorado boarding school for boys with behavioral problems, he met his frequent lyricist-collaborator John Perry Barlow.

Weir began playing guitar at age 13 and a few years later met and latched on to Garcia, five years his senior, when he heard him playing banjo in Palo Alto, California.

Weir became the Dead's youngest member and looked like a fresh-faced high-schooler in its early years. He was generally less shaggy than the rest of the band, but he had a long beard like Garcia’s in later years.

The band made its name and forged its identity at the LSD-fueled Acid Tests thrown in San Francisco in the mid-1960s by writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

Their music — called acid rock at its psychedelic inception — incorporated elements of blues, jazz and country in long improvisational jams at concerts.

The band went on to make classic albums including “American Beauty” and “Workingman's Dead,” but the Dead would always be primarily known as a live sensation.

“For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road,” the statement on his Instagram page said. It added that Weir will “forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music.”

Weir took take a backseat to Garcia, whose face was as much an avatar of the band as its legendary skull logo. At times he would be called “The Other One,” the name of an early song he wrote and the title of a 2014 documentary about him.

“Bob Weir wasn’t The Other One, he was That Guy,” TV personality and devoted Dead fan Andy Cohen said on Instagram on Saturday night. “He was impossibly beautiful and wildly fiery, intense and passionate.”

Others paying tribute included the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, who posted “God Bless Bob Weir” on the social platform X.

In New York, the Empire State Building was lit up in tie-dye colors in his honor.

The band survived long past the hippie moment of its birth, with its ultra-devoted fans known as Deadheads often following them on tours that persisted despite decades of shifting music and culture.

Ubiquitous bumper stickers and T-shirts showed dancing, colored bears, another symbol of the band, and signature phrases like “ain't no time to hate” and “not all who wander are lost.”

The Dead won few Grammys — they were always a little too esoteric — getting only a lifetime achievement award in 2007 and the best music film award in 2018, along with the 2025 MusiCares honor.

Just as rare were hit pop singles. “Touch of Grey,” which brought a big surge in the aging band's popularity in 1987, was their only Billboard Top 10 hit.

But in 2024 they set a record for all artists with their 59th album in Billboard's Top 40. Forty-one of those came since 2012, thanks to the popularity of a series of archival albums compiled by David Lemieux.

Weir also made solo albums, including 1972's “Ace,” 1978's “Heaven Help The Fool” and 2016's “Blue Mountain.”

He is survived by his wife, Natascha, and daughters Monet and Chloe.

FILE - Bob Weir plays guitar with his band The Dead, formerly the Grateful Dead, at the Forum in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, Calif. on Saturday May 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel,File)

FILE - This undated file photo shows members of the Grateful Dead band, from left to right, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bob Weir. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Kennedy Center Honors recipients from left; filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary American rock band the Grateful Dead band members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann Bob Weir and blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, applaud at at the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors reception in the East Room of the White House, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta,File)

FILE - Bob Weir arrives at Willie Nelson 90, celebrating the singer's 90th birthday on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Invision/AP,File)

FILE - Bob Weir of Dead & Company performs at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Manchester, Tenn. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP,File)