A grand jury charged Abdul Rahman of Murrieta Oct. 5 with buying and selling a live jaguar cub to a Riverside couple.
Rahman, also known as Manny Rahman, bought the cub, later named Eddie, for $30,000, after meeting him and an exotic animal dealer named Trisha Meyer, also named in the indictment, in an Austin, Texas, hotel room, prosecutors claim.
He had previously bought a marmoset from Meyer, but backed out of the deal when he discovered the marmoset was not a baby. Rahman and Meyer abandoned that animal at a pet shop in Las Vegas, investigators claim.
Rahman paid an extra $1,000 to ship the cub over state lines, they claim. He became bored of it, and did not know how to care for it, investigators claim.
He sold it for $20,000 to a Riverside city buyer, whom the indictment did not name. That buyer had a pregnant wife, and decided to lose the cub after someone expressed concerns with a jaguar being around a newborn infant, prosecutors claim.
He planned to kill the cat when it grew too large, according to a witness quoted in the indictment.
Shelter care
Instead, the unnamed concerned associate persuaded the buyer to drop the jaguar off at the Lions, Tigers and Bears exotic animal shelter in Alpine, San Diego County. The associate transported Eddie in a large kennel, and left him on the shelter’s doorsteps after working hours Sept. 17, 2021, prosecutors claim.
The animal was 4 months old at that time, according to Bobbi Brink, Lions, Tigers & Bears founder and director.
The cub has been there since. The shelter named him Eddie. The sanctuary provided Eddie with “around the clock care,” including veterinary care and a species-appropriate habitat and diet, Brink wrote. He is now healthy and thriving, and is offered a “permanent lifetime home” at the sanctuary, Brink continued.
“Eddie is a product of the convoluted underworld of the exotic animal trade. All before turning 5 months old, he was brought to private hotel rooms for photo opportunities, smuggled over state lines and illegally sold twice. He was purchased as a pet, and then quickly dumped when the reality of caring for a wild apex predator set in. The lure of owning exotic big cats continues to put these majestic animals at risk, as it fuels the exploitative trade for breeding, selling and trafficking of innocent animals,” Brink wrote.
Identified by Instagram photos
Ed Newcomer of the Fish and Wildlife Service investigated.
Lions, Tigers and Bears captured the drop-off on camera. A shelter employee told Newcomer that Eddie matched photos the staff had found of a jaguar cub on Instagram. They identified the cub using his spot and whisker patterns.
Newcomer matched the account that posted Eddie’s photos to a couple that owned houses in Riverside and Corona, and matched the background of the photos to the interior of the couple’s Riverside house using RedFin photos.
Rahman faces a statutory maximum sentence of seven years in federal prison and a $600,000 fine. His formal charges are violations of the Endangered Species Act, and the Lacey Act, which prohibits wildlife trafficking.
The Texan dealer who sold the cub to Rahman, Trisha Meyer, is still evading authorities. She faces eight years in federal prison and a $700,000 fine. Law enforcement agencies are searching for her in Houston.
Case info
Judge and defense attorneys are not yet announced.
Joseph Johns of the Office of the US Attorney prosecutes.
Case number 5:22-cr-00235.
Read the indictment here.
