Doc Antle Has Been Arrested and Charged With Money Laundering — Here's What You Need to Know
People have questions about Doc Antle, one of the stars from 'Tiger King.' He’s been accused of money laundering. These are the details.
Jun. 8 2022, Published 2:23 p.m. ET
When Tiger King first landed on Netflix, it started a lot of conversations among reality TV lovers. Every episode of the documentary was filled with drama, intrigue, and wild truths.
The show explored the secretive and weird underworld of big cat breeding, mainly focused on a zoo operator named Joe Exotic, aka Tiger King. These days, people have questions about Doc Antle, one of the other stars from the original show. He’s been accused of breaking the law in a major way. These are the details.
Was Doc Antle really accused of money laundering? Here’s the truth.
Antle has officially been charged with federal money laundering, according to Yahoo Entertainment. The amount of money he’s been accused of laundering isn’t some tiny amount either — it’s over $500,000. One of Antle's Myrtle Beach Safari employees, Omar Sawyer, has been charged in conjunction with the crime alongside him.
Sawyer and Antle were both arrested by law enforcement officials on Friday, June 3, 2022. It turns out that a confidential informant was working closely with FBI agents to expose Antle and Sawyer for breaking the law.
The unsealed federal document highlighting details of the case says, “Over the last four months, [Doc] Antle and [Omar] Sawyer laundered $505,000 in cash believed to be the proceeds of an operation to smuggle illegal immigrants across the Mexican border into the United States."
How exactly did the cops catch them red-handed though? Police got their hands on a multitude of recorded audio conversations between Antle and Sawyer detailing their money laundering scheme.
Does Doc Antle already have a criminal history?
Getting arrested for money laundering isn’t the first time Antle has been in trouble with the law. According to Fatherly, he’s considered the “true villain of Tiger King." Back in 2020, he faced 15 charges for a completely separate issue. The 15 charges included 13 misdemeanor charges and two felonies focused on conspiracy to traffic wildlife, conspiracy to violate the endangered species act, animal cruelty, and blatant wildlife trafficking.
At the time, The New York Times reported Antle‘s response to the charges. Antle said, “I categorically deny any act or conduct that would ever be considered as animal cruelty. I have spent my entire professional life promoting the welfare and conservation of big cats and other species.” The accusations of animal abuse against Antle are horrible to consider, but his legal issues don’t stop there.
According to WBTW, Antle also faced allegations of having sex with underage girls in 2021. He allegedly engaged in inappropriate sexual relations with more than one minor, attempted a conspiracy to forge a signature from a teenage girl to legally marry her, and physically harmed multiple women throughout the 1980s.
In the three-part series Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story, multiple women said that they engaged in sexual relations with Antle when they were only 14 or 15 years old. He has been involved in plenty of legal problems over the years, and now, things for him are likely about to get a lot worse.
