press release<\/a> from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, Haddix previously pleaded guilty to two felony counts of perjury and one felony count of obstruction of justice. <\/p>\nHaddix was known for operating the Missouri Primate Foundation, which has been in a heated civil battle with PETA over her alleged mistreatment of the chimpanzees under her care.<\/p>\n
The chimp lover \u201crepeatedly failed to comply\u201d with court orders she was given to improve the quality of care she provided to the chimps, and in 2021, a judge ordered her to relinquish every single one of her primates to the Center for Great Apes sanctuary in Florida, according to the USAO.<\/p>\n
When authorities arrived at her property to remove the apes, Haddix claimed Tonka had died and she cremated his remains.<\/p>\n
This false narrative went into official court motions that constitute perjury since Haddix was under oath.<\/p>\n
While shooting \u201cChimp Crazy,\u201d the filmmakers, who were also behind the Netflix hit \u201cTiger King,\u201d discovered Tonka was alive and in a cage in Haddix\u2019s basement. Once she declared her plans to euthanize Tonka, the production alerted PETA, and in 2022, federal marshals transferred Tonka to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Florida.<\/p>\n
The USAO states that two weeks after Haddix\u2019s guilty plea this year, she was jailed for violating the terms of her pretrial release because a court-ordered search of her home proved she was hiding yet another chimp from authorities.<\/p>\n
“Now that Tonia Haddix is locked up, she’s getting a taste of the suffering she inflicted on animals by imprisoning them in cages and denying them any semblance of a natural life,” Brittany Peet, the PETA Foundation General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement, said in a statement. “PETA is relieved to see justice done and urges everyone to support the Captive Primate Safety Act, which will keep vulnerable monkeys and apes out of the pet trade and the hands of ruthless dealers like Haddix.”<\/p>\n
Tonka can be seen in films like \u201cGeorge of the Jungle\u201d and \u201cBabe\u201d Pig in the City\u201d before being in Haddix\u2019s care.<\/p>\n
Tonka has now adapted to a 17-chimp family at Save the Chimps.<\/p>\n
So happy to hear Tonka is so happy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cChimp Crazy\u201d star Tonia Haddix will be heading to prison. Tonia Haddix was the subject of the 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[57259,80551,80550,47551,5332,80552,159,79279,80549,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-132991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-chimp-crazy","9":"tag-missouri-primate-foundation","10":"tag-perjury","11":"tag-peta","12":"tag-prison","13":"tag-save-the-chimps","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-tonia-haddix","16":"tag-tonka","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115001532453899851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}