Tonia Haddix, the Missouri woman whose legal and personal battles over a Hollywood-trained chimpanzee became the subject of the 2024 HBO docuseries Chimp Crazy, has been sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison after lying about the animal’s death.
Haddix, 56, was handed a 46-month sentence on Thursday, followed by three years of supervised release, for two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. The charges stemmed from her false claim that Tonka, a chimpanzee she had been ordered to surrender, had died and been cremated.
Tonka was no ordinary chimp. In the late 1990s, he appeared in the films Buddy and George of the Jungle, working alongside actors like Alan Cumming, who later publicly advocated for the animal’s relocation to a sanctuary. Haddix had acquired Tonka and several other chimps through her Festus, Missouri-based facility, which rented the primates out for parties, commercials, and film productions.
Her troubles with animal welfare authorities began years earlier. In 2014, PETA sued, alleging Haddix kept chimpanzees in “cramped, virtually barren enclosures” at the now-defunct Missouri Primate Foundation. By 2020, a court order required her to send four chimpanzees to a Florida sanctuary, allowing her to keep three others, including Tonka, at a new facility she was supposed to build.
That arrangement quickly unraveled. In 2021, after a judge determined she had failed to comply with the consent decree, federal marshals arrived to seize the remaining animals. Tonka was missing. Haddix told the court he had died of natural causes and that she had cremated him.
But Tonka was very much alive. In 2022, PETA discovered him in a cage in the basement of Haddix’s new home in Sunrise Beach, Missouri. The HBO series shows Haddix admitting that she lied to “protect” Tonka from what she called “the evil clutches of PETA.” She also claimed the two had been “on the run” together.
Tonka was eventually relocated to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The case might have ended there, but in July 2024—while Haddix was free on bond—investigators again found a chimp locked in her basement, a violation of court orders. Her bond was revoked, and prosecutors accused her of showing “no remorse” for her conduct.
Her attorney, Justin Gelfand, argued for leniency, citing her history of abuse in childhood and turbulent marriages, but the court imposed the maximum sentence under the plea agreement.
“Now that Tonia Haddix is locked up, she’s getting a taste of the suffering she inflicted on animals,” said Brittany Peet, general counsel for the group’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement division.
Chimp Crazy, produced by Tiger King creator Eric Goode, documents the years-long saga in detail—right up to the moment Haddix’s deception about Tonka collapsed. The series remains available to stream on HBO Max, an unsettling chronicle of a relationship between a woman and a primate that became stranger than fiction.
