The Dallas-area influencer who had her spider monkey taken from her Saturday after a drunk driving crash is under investigation after the monkey was determined to be malnourished, officials said Friday.
Brandi Botello’s spider monkey, named Jorgie Boy, was taken from her following the crash in which Dallas police arrested the driver on a charge of driving while intoxicated.
Irving, the Dallas suburb where Botello lives, prohibits ownership of wild animals so the monkey was transferred to its animal control department, authorities have said. It was eventually moved to an animal sanctuary.
Irving police spokesperson Delaney Brey said the city’s animal services department is leading the investigation into Botello.
Brey said the department is investigating “the care of the animal and the state that it was in when it was handed over.” Police have said the monkey was diagnosed with rickets, described as “a bone disease caused by inadequate nutrition.”
No charges related to the animal have been filed against Botello. Charges will not be determined until the investigation concludes “because there is a difference between neglect and cruelty,” Brey said.
It’s unclear how long the investigation will take, Brey said.
According to Texas law, if someone is convicted of animal cruelty, they are not able to own any animals for five years, Brey said, but noted there are different levels of the charge from misdemeanor to felony.
“At the end of the day, it was illegal for her to have [the monkey] in Irving, period,” Brey said. She said typically, in these cases, owners don’t fight to get their animals back because it would require them to move to a different city.
Botello did not respond Friday to multiple requests for comment. The Irving Animal Services Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation.
Dallas police did not identify the driver in the single-vehicle crash, but Botello told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth she was the one who was arrested with a DWI. She said that a male acquaintance was the one driving, and that she only climbed into the driver’s seat after the crash.
She told the station she was drunk and asleep in the passenger seat while holding Jorgie Boy when the crash happened.
Jorgie Boy legally at sanctuary
Dwan Johns, the owner of Funky Monkey Ranch, a sanctuary near Fort Worth, confirmed to NBC News on Friday it now legally in possession of Jorgie Boy.
“I immediately added him to my USDA license here at our ranch. So he is legally here, where he will stay,” Johns said.
She added: “Thankfully we were available to take him in.”
Johns said the monkey weighed 6 pounds, which is less than half of an average spider monkey’s weight, and that he had a metabolic bone disease caused by poor nutrition as well as elevated liver and pancreatic levels.
Botello, who has 43,000 Instagram followers, has launched something of a campaign to reunite with Jorgie Boy, reposting a number of Instagram stories from followers Thursday who posted with the hashtag “#FreeJorgieBoy.”
Monkey could have been euthanized
In a video shared to the Funky Monkey Ranch TikTok, Johns acknowledged the sympathy Botello has garnered and said she wanted to share the “reality” of the situation.
She said she got a call from Irving Animal Control on Saturday saying they had confiscated a monkey but “didn’t know what to do with it.”
Because Irving has a zero-tolerance policy for wild animals within the city, Jorgie Boy was going to be euthanized if Funky Monkey Ranch or another sanctuary did not have room for him, Johns said.
She said in the video that these cities are not trained in how to safely take care of wild animals like Jorgie Boy, and if, for example, the monkey had bitten someone, they would have had to test for rabies, which would have required Jorgie Boy to be euthanized.
Johns said that “within five seconds” of seeing Jorgie Boy, she determined “that animal has some severe special needs.”
She said his head and feet are not proportionate to his body and his growth has been stunted “due to animal neglect.” Jorgie Boy is the size of a 1-year-old monkey even though he will turn 3 in February. He also had tiny fractures in his bones, which were not from the car accident, Johns said.
A primate vet checked Jorgie Boy out Monday, Johns said.
“Unfortunately, he was forced to live a lifestyle that was detrimental to his health,” Johns said. “He grew up spending his nights in night clubs, partying around drugs and alcohol, not eating a healthy diet that a spider monkey would eat, not being exposed to correct enrichment and playtime.”
Long road to recovery
The sanctuary is doing sun therapy with Jorgie Boy twice a day for the next six weeks, at which point he will go back to the vet for more X-rays to see how his bones are healing. Johns said they hope to then start physical therapy.
It might take over a year to get Jorgie Boy to a point where he is strong enough to play with other monkeys again, Johns said.
Johns said she shared the story to let people know that when they were asked to take Jorgie Boy in, “it wasn’t to try to take someone else’s monkey, it was to prevent a monkey from being euthanized.”
“We are going to whatever it takes to save him and to get him healthy again and to let him live a happy life,” Johns said.
“I just want to make it clear that if you’re taking any kind of exotic animal into your care, it is your duty and your responsibility to do the proper research, to acquire the proper veterinarian that specializes in that exotic animal and to provide them with everything that they need,” Johns said. “And when you do not do those things, then you are the cause of the animal neglect and cruelty.”
