Teen bought Sally the monkey for $9,500 and it bit her, report says. Owner is charged
.jpg "Joann Newberger, 75, was arrested in Putnam County, Florida, on Feb. 18, 2022, after she was cited by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for reportedly possessing a Capuchin monkey without a permit. Newberger is accused of selling the monkey for $9,500 to a 15-year-old girl from Alabama, whom the monkey later bit.")
A 15-year-old and her mother drove roughly 500 miles to buy a Capuchin monkey named Sally after they spotted an advertisement on www.ExoticAnimalsForSale.net offering the primate for $9,500, according to an incident report.
The deal went down before the sun came up on Nov. 22, investigators said. By 6:30 a.m., the teenager had returned her new pet and suffered a serious bite on her index finger that prompted a visit to the hospital and a call to law enforcement. Now a 75-year-old woman is facing criminal charges.
Joan Newberger, Sally’s owner who facilitated the ill-fated sale, was arrested on Feb. 18 and charged with four counts of illegal possession of conservation animals, Putnam County arrest records show.
She was released the same day.
A representative from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Feb. 22.
Newberger was previously issued a citation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for possession of captive wildlife without a permit. A Fish and Wildlife incident report from Dec. 9 shows Newberger never received the proper permit to import the Capuchin monkey when she reportedly brought it to Florida from South Carolina in 2020. She also had her captive wildlife license revoked in 2016.
According to the initial incident report, the case stems from the sale of a Capuchin monkey on Nov. 22.
An investigator with Florida Fish and Wildlife was called to Putnam Community Medical Center just after 12:30 p.m. that day to respond to a report of a monkey bite, the report states.
She was met with a teenager and her mother, who explained that the girl wanted a Capuchin monkey and decided to buy Sally after seeing the advertisement online. The investigator said the pair drove from Boaz, Alabama, to Satsuma, Florida — where Newberger lives — to purchase the monkey and arrived “in the early morning morning hours prior to 6 a.m.”
Satsuma is an unincorporated community in Putnam County, about 56 miles east of Gainesville.
Newberger took them to a trailer where they said the Capuchin monkey was tied to a bed with 10-pound weights. A second, smaller monkey later identified as a white tufted marmoset was reportedly also there.
The teenager and her mother bought Sally for $9,500 in cash and Newberger wrote a bill of sale for them on a sheet of paper from the Holiday Inn Express, according to photographs filed in the incident report. Newberger then told them she didn’t have any paperwork for the monkey and suggested they drive directly to the Florida state line so they wouldn’t be stopped and asked for a permit, investigators said.
But the mother and daughter didn’t get very far.
According to the incident report, the pair decided to pull over and change Sally’s diaper shortly after leaving Newberger’s home. The monkey started acting aggressively, investigators said, and the teenager and her mother decided to return it.
Newberger reportedly agreed to take Sally back and refund them $9,000 but kept $500 as a nonrefundable deposit.
“While (the mother) was in the process of counting the cash back, (the daughter) asked Joan if she could say goodbye to Sally,” the report states. “Joan said yes. (The daughter) reached to pet Sally and Sally bit (her) right index finger at approximately 06:30 a.m.”
The pair immediately went to the hospital, according to the report.
Two additional investigators with Florida Fish and Wildlife went to Newberger’s home to investigate while the mother and daughter were being interviewed at the hospital. They said her home was surrounded by an eight-foot privacy wall, and it took several attempts to get Newberger to speak with them.
She eventually let them search the property, where they found the Capuchin and marmoset monkeys in a trailer, investigators said.
Newberger said she was the owner of the Capuchin and called it her “support animal” but initially denied ever trying to sell it, according to the report. The marmoset was licensed under her brother’s name, investigators said, but neither had the proper paperwork to possess the Capuchin.
Florida Fish and Wildlife subsequently seized the monkey.
“Inv. (Justin) Miller issued Joan Newburger a criminal citation for Selling/Attempting to sell wildlife without a valid license and explained several times to Joan that she could not possess the monkey,” one investigator said in the report. “Joan became angry and refused to sign over the monkey. However she did reluctantly put a few toys in the transport cage and put the Capuchin into the cage as well.”
As of 2015, it was legal to keep a primate as a pet in at least 12 states, eight of which require some form of a license including Florida, according to the Animal Welfare Institute.
No update on Sally was provided by officials.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Teen bought Sally the monkey for $9,500 and it bit her, report says. Owner is charged."
