“Chimp Loopy” star Tonia Haddix sentenced to jail for mendacity about chimpanzee’s demise

• Chimp Loopy star Tonia Haddix was sentenced to 46 months in jail.
• The primate dealer pleaded responsible to perjury and obstruction of justice after mendacity concerning the demise of a chimpanzee in court docket.
• The chimp, Tonka, was moved to a sanctuary in Florida upon the invention that he was nonetheless alive.

Chimp Loopy star Tonia Haddix is heading to jail.

The Missouri-based primate dealer, who was the topic of the 2024 HBO docuseries, was sentenced to 46 months in jail after mendacity concerning the demise of a chimpanzee actor named Tonka in U.S. District Court docket. Haddix beforehand pleaded responsible to 2 felony counts of perjury and one felony rely of obstruction of justice, in line with a press launch from the U.S. Lawyer's Workplace.

Representatives for Haddix didn’t instantly reply to Leisure Weekly's request for remark.

Haddix operated the Missouri Primate Basis, which was locked in a civil authorized battle with PETA over alleged mistreatment of the chimpanzees in her care. Haddix "repeatedly didn’t comply" with court docket orders instructing her to enhance the standard of care she supplied to her chimps, and in 2021, a choose ordered her to relinquish all of her primates to the Heart for Nice Apes sanctuary in Florida, in line with the USAO.

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Nonetheless, when authorities eliminated the remainder of her apes, Haddix repeatedly claimed that Tonka had died, and that she had cremated his stays. "He simply died on his personal, so there was no saving him," she claimed, per the USAO.

That false narrative prolonged into official court docket motions and declarations that represent perjury since she was beneath oath.

Whereas taking pictures Chimp Loopy, the filmmakers behind the documentary — together with Tiger King director Eric Goode — found that Tonka was alive in a cage in Maddix's basement. Upon listening to Maddix say that she deliberate to have the chimp euthanized, the manufacturing alerted PETA to the state of affairs in 2022 and federal marshals transferred Tonka to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Florida.

The USAO additionally acknowledged that two weeks after her responsible plea this 12 months, Haddix was jailed for violating the phrases of her pretrial launch and look bond as a result of a court-ordered search of her dwelling revealed that she was hiding one other chimp from authorities.

"Now that Tonia Haddix is locked up, she's getting a style of the struggling she inflicted on animals by imprisoning them in cages and denying them any semblance of a pure life," Brittany Peet, the PETA Basis Basic Counsel for Captive Animal Regulation Enforcement, stated in an announcement. "PETA is relieved to see justice performed and urges everybody to help the Captive Primate Security Act, which is able to hold weak monkeys and apes out of the pet commerce and the palms of ruthless sellers like Haddix."

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Tonka, who appeared in movies like George of the Jungle and Babe: Pig within the Metropolis earlier than coming into Haddix's care, has now tailored to a 17-chimp household at Save the Chimps.

"When Tonka got here to us, he was extra human-oriented than chimp-oriented and barely concerned himself in group politics," Jenny Friedman, a care staffer for the sanctuary, stated in an announcement on Save the Chimps' web site. "Now, you’ll by no means know that Tonka is new to the group. He interacts affectionately with all of the chimps and can drop every thing to affix a grooming session."

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