A spider monkey belonging to a Dallas-area influencer had a disease caused by malnutrition when police took him from his owner over the weekend, officials said.
The monkey, named Jorgie Boy, was taken from his owner, Brandi Botello, on Saturday morning after Dallas police officers responded to a single-vehicle accident. The driver was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated, police said in a statement.
Police did not identify the driver in the statement. Botello told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth that she was charged with DWI but maintained that she was not driving. She said that at the time of the crash, she was intoxicated and had passed out in the passenger seat holding the nearly 3-year-old spider monkey.
“I didn’t even know what was going on. I slept through the car accident. I didn’t even know we were in an accident,” she told the station. “I wasn’t driving.”
She said she did move into the driver’s seat after the crash.
“I hopped over to the driver’s seat. I didn’t know we crashed in front of the police station. When I turned around there was a cop right there and he was trying to accuse me of driving, but I wasn’t driving,” she said, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
Botello told the station that the driver was a male acquaintance and that he was charged with public intoxication.
Neither the humans nor the monkey in the car were seriously injured, police said.
Because Botello lives in Irving, a neighboring suburb, the monkey was transferred to Irving’s animal control department, Dallas police said.
Irving police said Thursday that Jorgie Boy was diagnosed with rickets, which they described as “a bone disease caused by inadequate nutrition.” The police department said he is receiving care at “an undisclosed wildlife sanctuary in Texas.”
Dwan Johns, from the Funky Monkey Ranch, a sanctuary near Fort Worth, Texas, confirmed to NBC News that Jorgie Boy is now in their care.
Johns also confirmed that Jorgie Boy weighed 6 pounds — less than half of an average spider monkey — and that he had tiny fractures in his bones, a metabolic bone disease caused by poor nutrition, and elevated liver and pancreatic levels.
Johns told NBC News that Jorgie Boy was legally released to her on Saturday from Irving Animal Control. She said local animal controls in cities where owning wild animals is prohibited cannot care for those “wild exotic dangerous animals,” which spider monkeys are classified as, per the United States Department of Agriculture.
Johns said the monkey would not be returned to its previous owner, the Dallas Morning News reported.
“I immediately added him to my USDA license here at our ranch. So he is legally here where he will stay,” Johns told NBC News. She explained that because Botello owned Jorgie Boy illegally in a city where spider monkeys are prohibited, the city “could have euthanized without cause.”
“Thankfully we were available to take him in,” Johns said.
It is legal in Texas to own some exotic animals, including monkeys, with permits, but the city of Irving prohibits ownership of wild animals.
Botello, who has 43,000 Instagram followers, has been reposting followers’ stories with the hashtag “#FreeJorgieBoy.”
On Instagram, Botello wrote “this ugly depressing lonely feeling I have is the worst” but said she is “not going to stop trying!”
“He means more to me thenanything in this world I’m not going to let one little mistake break me I’m willing to change anything and everything for him,” she wrote.
“Being at the wrong place at the wrong time is a real thing,” Botello continued. “I owned up to it … I know I’m a good mom … WE ALL KNOW that!”
Jorgie Boy has an online presence of his own, including an Instagram account with nearly 6,000 followers that includes pictures of him wearing pajama sets, taking baths and dressing up with Botello, who has his name tattooed on her back.
Jorgie Boy’s story comes on the heels of that of Peanut, an Instagram-famous squirrel that authorities seized and euthanized after officials got reports that Peanut’s owner was illegally keeping wild animals in his home.
Cristian Santana and Meriam Bouarrouj contributed.