An lovely jaguar cub was handed round between drug sellers and an OnlyFans mannequin for the primary few months of its life earlier than it lastly reached its ‘ceaselessly dwelling.’
Tens of 1000’s of {dollars} had been exchanged between a number of sellers to have the privilege of proudly owning the unique cat, however once they discovered the animal to be a lot of a problem, they routinely discovered methods to do away with it.
Six months after it was born, the jaguar cub was discovered deserted at a San Diego animal sanctuary. It was malnourished, had patches of its fur lacking and was coated in feces.
Trisha Meyer, a lady who glided by ‘Texas Zookeeper,’ was the primary to have possession of the jaguar cub, whom she known as Amador.
Meyer, 42, would promote Amador in April 2021 to Abdul ‘Mannie’ Rahman, a marijuana supplier from California. And simply over a 12 months later, they had been each indicted by federal prosecutors with the Central District of California for wildlife trafficking.
In an April 2021 picture, Trisha Meyer poses with the jaguar cub she named Amador, whom she’d later promote to Abdul ‘Mannie’ Rahman
Amador appeared on Meyer’s Instagram fairly steadily
Earlier than Meyer received busted for this, she had a following on Instagram; her account was known as ‘Mimiseroticworld.’
Her account has since been toned down – that includes far much less scantily clad posts – and was renamed to mimisexoticworld.
In her heyday, Meyer made cash by way of an OnlyFans web page and thru promoting unique animals from her dwelling in Texas, a state that has notoriously liberal legal guidelines on the kinds of pets individuals can personal.
Meyer posted footage of macaws, monkeys, tigers and foxes.
Amador appeared on Meyer’s Instagram when he was simply 14 days outdated, and she or he was holding him within the palm of her hand whereas squeezing him to her cheek, the Los Angeles Occasions reported.
In a single 2021 video, because the cub licked on the empty air whereas mendacity on Meyer’s lap.
‘grateful to be his momma #catmom,’ Meyer wrote concerning the cub.
Meyer even posed with Amador on her OnlyFans web page, putting him in between her uncovered breasts.
It is unclear how Amador ended up in Meyer’s possession, although she has a protracted historical past of buying uncommon animals.
Amador is pictured in between Meyer’s uncovered breasts in an OnlyFans publish
Meyer is pictured with three tigers. Her possession of those harmful large cats would ultimately get her in hassle with the legislation
Meyer was arrested for having the three tigers, with authorities accusing her of endangering her youngsters
When Amador was lower than a month outdated, Meyer determined she would lease him out to high-paying prospects as an alternative of simply promoting him immediately.
Individuals got here to a Austin lodge room and paid $1,000 an hour simply to have the photographs taken with Amador and cuddle with him.
Rahman was one of many individuals who ventured into this unusual, but profitable hustle for Meyer.
Because the cub wandered round on the lodge carpet, Rahman determined he needed to purchase it.
He paid a reduced fee of $25,000 and one other $1,000 to have it transported from Texas to California, which is towards the legislation.
‘All I knew was the jaguar was cute, and I had the cash, and I needed it,’ Rahman, 36, instructed the LA Occasions.
Meyer’s enterprise of promoting animals endured lengthy earlier than she ever received her palms on Amador.
She was as soon as accused of accepting cash for a giraffe – which was valued at $30,000 to $150,000 – however by no means truly handing over the long-necked mammal, KBTX reported in November 2022.
Meyer continued to rack up critical complaints from prospects, which might ultimately balloon right into a federal wildlife trafficking investigation towards her
Meyer started to embrace the nickname she obtained: ‘tiger mother’ (Pictured: Amador nonetheless as a younger cub)
This turns into a sample with Meyer. A California resident who purchased a Savannah kitten from her filed a felony grievance in 2016 alleging he had by no means obtained it.
Authorities would meet up with Meyer in November 2016 in Nevada. They arrested her on a felony warrant out of Texas, however not earlier than noticing three tigers unfastened within the yard of the home she was staying at, LA Occasions reported.
Meyer was additionally charged with youngster endangerment, since a recreation warden found her 14-year-old daughter petting three tiger cubs within the yard of her Houston dwelling.
As a situation of her bond, she may not possess or promote unique animals.
She’d later plead responsible in 2017 to a theft charged linked to the Savannah kitten sale that she by no means delivered on, receiving two years of probation.
She paid restitution and the kid endangerment cost was dismissed, based on the Harris County district lawyer’s workplace.
‘My youngster was by no means in peril, none of my 4 youngsters have ever been in peril,’ Meyer instructed a reporter after her responsible plea. ‘No one’s been harm by our animals.’
Meyer known as her children ‘younger zookeepers.’
She additionally mentioned lecturers at her children’ colleges began referring to Meyer because the ‘tiger mother.’
‘She’s going to adjust to the legislation to a T,’ her lawyer, Penny Wymyczak-White, mentioned.
Proper because the partitions had been closing in for Meyer, she bought Amador to Rahman, who took him again to Southern California. Because it’s unlawful to personal a jaguar in California, Rahman would later face felony prices
This proved to be an elusive job for the ‘tiger mother’ who rapidly racked up extra felony complaints towards her.
In 2019, one buyer alleged Meyer bought her a diseased Savannah kitten for $4,500. The cat would later die, and emaciation was the contributing issue, based on a necropsy.
As a part of the identical Texas felony grievance, a Las Vegas-based purchaser instructed investigators Meyer bought them 5 Savannah kittens for greater than $16,000.
After one in every of them was contaminated with an endemic, all of them needed to be euthanized.
A second felony grievance alleged {that a} Nevada resident agreed to purchase a Bengal kitten from Meyer for $6,500. The animal, hissing and thrashing in a bag, jumped out and attacked her.
She instructed police the cat drew blood. Later, she discovered that Meyer bought her a Geoffroy’s cat – a wild species – and never a Bengal, which is exotic-looking however domesticated.
In keeping with the grievance, Meyer initially agreed to take the cat again however blocked the customer on social media, modified her cellphone quantity and by no means gave her a refund.
On April 17, 2021, proper as all of those circumstances had been working their manner by way of the Harris County courtroom system, Meyer took Amador, the jaguar cub to the Hyatt Regency lodge room.
When he arrived in Southern California, Amador was renamed Hades
It was the exact same one the place Amador illegally went dwelling with Rahman, his new, short-lived proprietor.
When he arrived in Southern California, Amador was renamed Hades.
‘I am an animal particular person. I like animals, particularly wild ones,’ Rahman instructed the LA Occasions. ‘Once I’m getting supplied to purchase a wild animal, and it is so cute if you see it, when it is small, who the f— is gonna say no? Nobody will.’
Rahman saved the rising jaguar in his 5 bed room home in Murrieta, roughly an 80 mile drive from downtown Los Angeles.
Investigators mentioned Meyer texted Rahman after photographs of Hades had been posted on-line, telling him to ‘get a deal with on that.’
‘If I received phrase of it right here. Meaning others are seeing that & will snitch and they are going to be attempting to trace him down,’ based on a California felony grievance.
Meyer was allowed to personal a jaguar in Texas, however she wasn’t allowed to move it past state strains. It was additionally unlawful for Rahman to personal the jaguar in California.
Finally Rahman realized that caring for Hades was too tough, based on federal fish and wildlife investigators, and bought him for $20,000.
The one that purchased it from Rahman lived in a home with ‘a pregnant spouse or girlfriend,’ based on the October 2022 indictment towards Meyer and Rahman.
Bobbi Brink, pictured, runs the Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary in San Diego County. She started seeing footage and movies of a jaguar cub in California circulating on the social media
That is when the cub began exhibiting up once more in Instagram movies. Apparently the house was in Riverside County.
This caught the eye of Bobbi Brink, the founder and director of the Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary in San Diego County.
Brink notified Austin Smith, a warden with the California Division of Fish and Wildlife.
‘All we knew at that time was that there was a jaguar in Riverside,’ Smith instructed the LA Occasions.
The indictment claims that the one that purchased the jaguar from Rahman ultimately determined it could be finest to take it to a rescue middle after somebody ‘expressed issues about having a juvenile jaguar and a new child toddler in the identical home.’
The one that expressed this concern – recognized in courtroom paperwork by initials ‘R.A.’ – teamed up together with his roommate to do away with the jaguar. They put it in a big canine kennel and drove it to an animal rescue middle in Alpine, California, on September 17, 2021, based on the indictment.
It was Brink’s rescue middle. Surveillance cameras captured a person driving as much as the entrance gate at round 10 pm in a Mitsubishi Outlander earlier than abandoning the canine kennel.
Brink remembered discovering the jaguar the following day. It was shaking and urinating in concern, she mentioned.
Ed Newcomer, left, and Austin Smith, proper, teamed up to determine how the jaguar cub made it to Brink’s animal shelter
They named the cub after the development employee who first discovered it: Eddie.
As soon as the jaguar was lastly protected, it was time to shift focus to who was behind this large cat trafficking scheme.
Ed Newcomer, a particular agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for over 20 years, led the investigation alongside Smith.
It was Newcomer’s final case earlier than he retired.
He mentioned he hardly ever busted individuals for promoting jaguars and different comparable animals. He did inform the LA Occasions a couple of dwelling he raided crammed with containers that had snakes jammed inside them. They by no means noticed the solar.
‘Once you arrest these individuals, and so they find yourself in entrance of a choose, they inform the choose, “I’m an animal lover. I simply received a bit of carried away.” And nothing pisses me off extra. They aren’t animal lovers,’ Newcomer mentioned.
‘They’re both in it for the cash or they’re in it for the obsession of amassing and proudly owning and having and controlling.’
Newcomer was in a position to dredge up two different people that will have owned the jaguar cub previous to it being deserted on the Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary.
Movies he got here throughout confirmed a person – recognized in courtroom information as A.G. – housing the jaguar at his residence on Lakepointe Drive in Riverside. One other video confirmed an influencer recognized as O.B. posing with the jaguar and an costly automobile within the background.
Eddie is pictured totally grown in his habitat at the Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary
Eddie lies on the grass of his enclosure, which neighbors a grizzly bear and a lion
Mathias Tobler, director of inhabitants sustainability on the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, helped Newcomer verify that these movies actually had been of Eddie, and never another jaguar.
‘It’s fairly horrific to see that and to know that that occurs,’ Tobler mentioned. ‘Individuals treating him like a bit of pet cat and passing him round for leisure.’
A.G. denied figuring out something concerning the jaguar, regardless of proudly owning the house on Lakepointe Drive.
Finally, investigators found a person named Hector Gomez, who was renting the house from A.G., was the one who had possession of the jaguar.
Gomez had arrest warrants in Texas and Arizona for allegedly promoting medicine to an undercover officer and trafficking marijuana through practice between California and Texas.
Gomez was arrested in March 2022, and a witness interviewed by Newcomer and Smith instructed them Gomez had been planning to kill the jaguar earlier than it received too large.
O.B. ultimately instructed Newcomer concerning the girl who bought Rahman the cub. She was described as a blond girl who wore a whole lot of make-up.
Newcomer took that description to a Texas federal agent who was instantly in a position to make the identification.
‘Immediately he mentioned, “That’s Trish Meyer, we’ve got been after her for years. She is infamous,”‘ Newcomer mentioned. ‘That’s the primary time I heard Trish Meyer’s identify.’
A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment towards Meyer in October 2022. She was a fugitive from the legislation for greater than a month earlier than she turned herself in.
Among the many prices she confronted had been interstate transportation of an endangered species in the middle of business exercise, interstate sale of an endangered species, trafficking prohibited wildlife species, and trafficking endangered species.
Rahman was charged with all the identical crimes besides the interstate sale cost.
He was sentenced in July 2023 to a 12 months of probation and was ordered by the courtroom to pay $30,000 in restitution to Brink’s sanctuary.
Meyer pleaded responsible in June 2023 to trafficking endangered species and is scheduled to be sentenced subsequent month.
She may go to jail for 5 years.
Regardless of the possibly life-altering penalties she faces, Meyer nonetheless posts footage of herself with varied animals on Instagram
Regardless of the possibly life-altering penalties she faces, Meyer remains to be fairly lively on Instagram.
She nonetheless steadily takes footage together with her unique animals, together with a lemur, a white tiger and varied birds and cats.
She even did a complete photoshoot to have fun her youngest daughter’s being pregnant in Might of this 12 months.
She is, nonetheless, fairly clear in her bio that she would not promote animals anymore.
These days, the jaguar referred to as Eddie is a 118-pound magnificence that roams round in his habitat, which options grass, rocks, climbing platforms and a pool.
Eddie lives subsequent to a as soon as film well-known grizzly bear named Rocky and Louie, a lion who was additionally used within the leisure business.
They’re three of the greater than 60 rescued animals that stay on the 142-acre property.
‘It’s their ceaselessly dwelling,’ mentioned John Schorman, a sanctuary keeper. ‘It’s a privilege watching all of the animals thrive.’
