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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Tiger Man’ may have to spend time behind bars

Karen Freifeld Newsday

NEW YORK – Harlem’s “Tiger Man,” who was arrested for keeping a 400-pound tiger as a pet in a fifth-floor apartment, pleaded guilty Tuesday to reckless endangerment.

Antoine Yates, 31, pleaded to a felony that could be considered a raw deal, given that he could have pleaded to a misdemeanor charge a month ago.

Yates, who wore a tiger-print tie to State Supreme Court in Manhattan, said he took the plea so that charges against his 70-year-old mother, Martha, would be dropped.

“I had to take my mother into consideration. She shouldn’t have to be going through the system for something I did – for something I love as well,” Yates said, referring to Ming, the Siberian-Bengal mix.

Yates, who had turned down a no-jail deal in June, now risks getting stripes of his own when he is sentenced Sept. 16.

He didn’t get much sympathy Tuesday from State Supreme Court Justice Budd Goodman, who said that there was no defense to charges of harboring a wild animal.

“A tiger is a wild animal as a matter of law. If it’s not a habitat, not a lab, not a circus,” the judge said, then Yates couldn’t have it.

Prosecutors claimed eight children – four relatives and four foster children – lived in Martha Yates’ apartment in a public housing complex at various times while the tiger was there.

“I did have an alligator and a tiger, but I never put the public at harm,” Yates said. “Maybe if I had proper finances, I would have done it in a different way.”

Yates, who admitted in court Tuesday that Ming lived in the apartment from February to October of last year, was outed to authorities in October by an anonymous caller. Yates was arrested the next day in Philadelphia, where he had gone for treatment of a tiger bite on his leg.

Ming, who was shot with a tranquilizer as he paced the apartment, was taken to an animal sanctuary in Ohio.

Yates said Tuesday he still wants his “brother” back.