Circus CriminalsCircuses routinely pick up transient workers on the road and are magnets for the criminal element, including child predators, violent convicts, and other unsavory characters. Contact PETA for documentation. May 25, 2004: Thomas Allen Riccio, a circus clown who performs under the name “Spanky” with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, was arrested in Fayetteville, N.C., and charged with 10 counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Authorities found 2,000 pictures on Riccio’s computer, which was kept in his room on the circus train, of child pornography that included girls as young as five years old engaged in sexually explicit activity with adults. February 26, 2004: Shortly after a show, a ringmaster with Circus Spectacular was arrested by police in St. Joseph, Mo., on a charge of fleeing from justice. The circus ringmaster was charged by Indiana authorities with first-degree child molestation. January 1, 2003: A Big Apple Circus employee was arrested in New York and charged with rape and sodomy. The victim, an 18-year-old woman, stated that the circus employee covered her mouth, ripped off her clothing, and punched and choked her before raping her. The alleged attack occurred shortly after a circus performance. October 25, 2002: According to the Associated Press, the former executive director of the Osman Temple Shrine Circus in Minnesota was found guilty of embezzling more than $300,000 from the organization. A jury found Robert L. Janecek guilty on 21 counts of mail fraud, four counts of tax evasion, three counts of failure to file tax returns, and one count of filing a false tax return. September 26, 2002: According to The Salt Lake Tribune, a Ringling acrobat was arrested and jailed in Idaho on charges of sexual battery against a 16-year-old girl. The acrobat allegedly dragged the victim back into his sleeping quarters, slammed the door, and assaulted her. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service also ordered the acrobat to be held. August 9, 2002: A Carson & Barnes truck carrying the circus’s two African elephants, Paula and Kristi, crashed in Rhinebeck, N.Y. The driver veered onto the right shoulder, which had a 4-foot drop-off, and the truck tipped onto its side. The road was closed for five hours while emergency workers used power tools to cut into the trailer, free the trapped elephants, and remove the wreckage. The elephants suffered minor injuries. The driver was charged with having an uninspected trailer and an insufficient logbook, as well as failure to keep right. June 21, 2002: According to The Baltimore Sun, a UniverSoul Circus worker was arrested after he attacked and stabbed a fellow employee in the abdomen during an argument. August 23, 2001: A Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus clown was found guilty on nine counts, including sodomy, sexual abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child, for sexually abusing a teenage assistant. The boy testified that clown Christopher Bayer began sodomizing him in 1995, when he was 11 years old. One incident was captured by a surveillance camera. March 1, 2001: A district magistrate in Pennsylvania found Bentley Bros. Circus owner Robert Moyer guilty of harassment after charges were filed against him on August 5, 2000. Moyer was fined $150 plus court costs. December 5, 2000: An Alain Zerbini animal keeper was arrested in Florida and charged with attempted armed robbery of a store. November 22, 2000: An elderly couple was killed in Brandon, Fla., when a circus tractor-trailer pulled in front of their pickup truck on the highway at a slow rate of speed. The driver for American Circus Corporation, a Cole Bros. Circus subsidiary, was jailed and charged with operating a commercial vehicle without the proper license and violation of the right of way. November 10, 2000: A Ringling employee was arrested in Rosemont, Ill., after police identified him from a fingerprint left behind when he allegedly mugged an Ohio woman at knifepoint a month earlier. The circus worker, who had been convicted of aggravated burglary and drug abuse in 1989, was suspected of committing a string of recent armed muggings. January 2, 2000: Texas authorities arrested ex-circus worker Tommy Lynn Sells for rape, the murder of two young girls, and slashing the throat of another. Sells, a suspected serial killer who has confessed to at least a dozen slayings across the country, was convicted and sentenced to death. March 1999: An undercover video recorded the animal care director for Carson & Barnes Circus scolding elephant trainers for spending too much time smoking marijuana. November 21, 1998: The Calgary Herald reported that the goat Ringling featured in 1980 as a “unicorn” was purchased from serial killer Leonard Thomas Lake. Lake abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered women before committing suicide when he was finally arrested in 1985. The “unicorn” was actually a mutilated goat whose horns had been manipulated to grow in the center of the animal’s forehead. July 24, 1998: The Great Falls Police Protective Association in Montana sued Sterling & Reid for failing to pay the association $6,000 for sponsorship of the circus. July 1998: Circus Gatti refused to pay a $10,620 balance owed to the city of Richmond, Calif., for a May 1998 circus show. June 16, 1998: Cedarburg, Wis., officials canceled Liebel Family Circus minutes before the 3 p.m. showtime because the circus owner had refused to comply with a city code section that requires circuses to submit a list of employees for background checks. Police have at times discovered fugitives traveling with circuses, and the ordinance was enacted out of concern for the safety of residents and visitors. March 17, 1998: The Mountain Xpress reported that a Ringling employee, who was on parole after serving seven years on a New York murder conviction, was arrested in connection with two break-ins and liquor theft at an Asheville, N.C., liquor store. May 15, 1997: A transient who came to Omaha, Neb., with the Shrine Circus was convicted of second-degree murder. The victim’s partially nude, badly decomposed body was found on June 16, 1995. She had been beaten to death with a chunk of concrete. April 13, 1997: A Ringling employee was arrested in Worcester, Mass., on a fugitive-from-justice warrant, which listed a charge of counterfeiting. October 21, 1996: Authorities discovered more than 3 tons of cocaine hidden inside the tent posts of a traveling circus. A truck driver for the circus was arrested in connection with the haul. May 1995: According to Society, “When asked about drug use amongst the crew, one [member of Circus Vargas’ permanent tent crew] responds mordaciously, ‘Does Howdy Doody have freckles?’” November 19, 1994: Ringling’s vice president of animal care, Gunther Gebel-Williams, was arrested in St. Louis and charged with disturbing the peace. Gebel-Williams had screamed at a police officer and threatened the officer with the whip that he used on his tigers because officers were giving traffic tickets to circus customers. October 19, 1994: A Ringling employee in Boston, Mass., was arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon when he stabbed a horse trainer in the stomach with a penknife. A fight had broken out when the employee had tried to get the horses to kick the trainer. August 20, 1994: An autopsy of Allen Campbell, an elephant trainer with Hawthorn Corporation, found that he had cocaine and alcohol in his system after he was crushed to death by an elephant during a circus performance in Honolulu, Hawaii. January 17, 1994: Two Ringling performers were arrested in Post Orange, Fla., and charged with disorderly intoxication. One of the men was also charged with resisting arrest with violence after he swung at the arresting officer and tried to push the patrol car into the officer. August 8, 1993: A Tucson, Ariz., Shrine Circus clown was arrested on charges of molesting three girls, ages 6, 7, and 10, he met at the circus. February 4, 1993: A Hawthorn employee, Bernhard Rosenquist, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery, and armed violence for allegedly stabbing a coworker. Rosenquist was also wanted by federal authorities as a probation violator and by the Lake County, Ill., authorities on burglary charges. May 21, 1992: According to The Record, Richard Garden, who owned Toby Tyler Circus and United Funding, was “accused of cheating charities and deceiving donors across the country. ... United Funding was sued or banned in a dozen states for deceptive telephone pitches. ... Toby Tyler Circus was cited for safety violations that resulted in bleacher collapses in Middletown Township, Pa., and Greenport, N.Y., where the 70 injured included an infant who suffered a skull fracture.” Garden started the Sterling & Reid Bros. Circus in 1998. November 1989: Former Ringling ringmaster Kristopher Antekeier revealed in his book Ringmaster that drug and alcohol abuse was a problem among Ringling employees. In fact, during his tour a worker was found dead in a railcar from a drug overdose. He had been dead for three days when a foul odor finally led to the discovery of his decomposing body. PETA You can help stop the suffering of elephants, tigers, and other animals abused in the name of "entertainment." Click here to support PETA's vital work. |
