Doc Antle of 'Tiger King' faces 20-year prison sentence in a money laundering case

Bhagavan "Doc" Antle, star of the television series 'Tiger King' and Andrew Jon Sawyer, one of Antle’s employees at Myrtle Beach Safari, werearrested on Friday in a money laundering case involving over a half-million dollars. They are said to be facing a maximum of 20-year federal prison terms if convicted.

The federal officers said Antle believed the money to be a part of the profits of an operation that smuggled people from across the Mexican border into the US.

Charges against Antle were revealed on Monday at the time of a federal court proceeding in Florence, South Carolina, that said Antle and Sawyer had laundered around $505,000 over a time period of four months by allotting checks from businesses they controlled. They used to receive a 15% fee for the money that was cleared by them.

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Allegedly, the cheques were supposedly payment for construction work at Antle’s beach safari but were actually made up as evidence to produce legitimate income for the recipients. The lawsuit stated that Antle discussed his plan to hide the money he got by inflating tourist numbers at his 50-acre (20-hectare) wildlife tropical preserve, the lawsuit stated in court on Monday. Prosecutors also claimed that he had previously used bulk cash receipts to buy animals without using checks.

Antle, who is an animal trainer, hasfeatured in Netflix's 2020 docu-series 'Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness’.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in May made a request to the IRS to probe Antle's Rare Species Fund, a nonprofit that raises funds for wildlife conservation. He has also been accused by PETA of using those funds to subsidise his safari site in Socastee, outside Myrtle Beach.

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Meanwhile, Antle has also been accused of mishandling lions and other wildlife by animal rights advocates, and in 2020 he was indicted in Virginia on charges of animal cruelty and wildlife trafficking. Trials relating to these charges will begin in July.

Antle has a history of law violations dating back to 1989 when the US Department of Agriculture penalised him for abandoning deer and peacocks at his Virginia zoo. He has been named in over 35 USDA breaches for mistreating animals to date.