Tonia Haddix appears unable to help herself.
Prosecutors have accused the star of the HBO documentary “Chimp Crazy" of violating the terms of her bond by owning another chimpanzee. Law enforcement reported finding a mature female chimp in a cage on her property in Camden County while serving a search warrant on July 9. She was arrested July 19 and made an initial appearance in the case at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday.
Haddix pleaded guilty earlier this year to three felonies for lying about the status of a different chimp named Tonka. As part of the requirements to stay out of jail before she was sentenced, she was prohibited from owning any chimpanzees and should have reported the search warrant to her pretrial services officer.
Prosecutors say the female ape found on the property is in a safe location.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has pursued a civil case against Haddix since 2016, called for Haddix to face a harsh prison sentence.
"Tonia Haddix has again defied court orders and locked a highly social chimpanzee in a tiny basement cage, without the companionship of other chimpanzees, appropriate care, or even the ability to feel sunlight on her skin,” the animal rights group's general counsel Brittany Peet said in a statement. “This person clearly won’t stop hurting animals unless and until she’s facing a long stay behind bars herself."
The criminal charges had their roots in the complicated civil case involving the Missouri Primate Foundation, which once bred chimpanzees for the entertainment industry, and the animal rights groups People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA accused the foundation of housing Tonka and six other chimps in a series of “barren and unsanitary enclosures,” which violated the terms of the Endangered Species Act.
A deal reached in October 2020 required Haddix, who was running the facility in Festus, to surrender the seven chimps living there. But when the time came in 2021 for the chimps to be transferred to the Center for Great Apes in Florida, Haddix falsely claimed that one of them, Tonka, had died.
Tonka was later found alive in a cage in a basement. He’s now living at a different chimpanzee sanctuary in Florida.
Haddix, dressed in a gray-and-white jail jumpsuit and without her signature blonde wig, was almost unrecognizable in court on Tuesday. She told the judge that while she had been recently hospitalized for a medical episode, she was capable of being in court.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark, who is handling the underlying criminal case, will decide at a hearing on Thursday whether Haddix will remain behind bars until she is sentenced on Aug. 7. She has also been ordered to appear in a state courtroom in St. Louis County on Aug. 5 to explain why she and her husband have refused to turn over financial records of four companies they own.
This story has been updated with a statement from PETA.
