N.Y. man who kept tiger pleads guilty to reckless endangerment

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, who wore a tiger-print tie to State Supreme Court in Manhattan, said he pleaded to the felony 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.
No defense
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. "It's a no-brainer ... a slam dunk."
Goodman told Yates he would be sentenced to probation to up to 6 months in jail. If convicted of the felony charge at trial, Yates could have received 2 1/3 to 7 years behind bars.
The charges against Martha Yates are expected to be formally dismissed Aug. 9. She will plead guilty to disorderly conduct, a violation, and get no jail time. She had already spent 15 days behind bars, immediately after her arrest.
Prosecutors contended 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.
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 Noah's Ark animal sanctuary in Berlin Center, Ohio.
Yates said Tuesday he still wants his "brother" back.