{"id":54133,"date":"2025-08-08T09:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T09:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54133\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T09:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T09:15:06","slug":"chimp-crazys-tonia-haddix-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54133\/","title":{"rendered":"Chimp Crazy’s Tonia Haddix Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTonia Haddix, the main subject of HBO<\/a>\u2018s 2024 docuseries \u201cChimp Crazy<\/a>,\u201d was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison on Thursday, according to local St. Louis outlet Fox 2.<\/a> She was convicted of two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice during an investigation into the alleged death of her celebrity pet chimpanzee, Tonka.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the HBO series recounts, Haddix owned a chimpanzee compound in Festus, Missouri, where she rented out the apes for special events, birthday parties, television commercials and movies. In 2020, one of her chimps escaped, leading to accusations regarding her treatment of the animals. Animal rights activist group PETA soon stepped in, obtaining a court order to remove the animals from Haddix\u2019s care and into a more suitable ape sanctuary.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaddix resisted the order for years, but when federal officials eventually came to collect the apes, she claimed that one of her chimpanzees, Tonka, had died before their arrival. Tonka was an older chimp who had appeared in several Hollywood films such as \u201cGeorge of the Jungle\u201d and \u201cBuddy.\u201d While his death was plausible, its timeliness was suspicious. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Haddix lied to a federal judge about her knowledge of Tonka\u2019s whereabouts, the animal was discovered living in her basement at a new house in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. The discovery led to her arrest, and she pled guilty in March to the counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. Tonka was transferred to Save The Chimps Sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Haddix was out on bail in July, officials discovered another unregistered chimp in her basement, which violated the terms of her bond. The case for this discovery is currently in appeals. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow that Tonia Haddix is locked up, she\u2019s getting a taste of the suffering she inflicted on animals by imprisoning them in cages and denying them any semblance of a natural life. 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,\u201d said Brittany Peet, PETA Foundation General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cChimp Crazy\u201d was produced and directed by \u201cTiger King\u201d creator Eric Goode. The series chronicles Haddix\u2019s relationship with Tonka and her tense battles with PETA leading up to the arrest. The documentary contains critical footage of Haddix lying to the judge about Tonka and Goode reporting her to PETA. The show premiered on HBO in 2024 and is currently available to stream on HBO Max.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tonia Haddix, the main subject of HBO\u2018s 2024 docuseries \u201cChimp Crazy,\u201d was sentenced to 46 months in federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,17536,75,5862],"class_list":["post-54133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chimp-crazy","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}