Davion Irvin, suspected of stealing marmosets from the Dallas Zoo, charged with felony theft

The man accused of breaking into the Dallas Zoo and stealing animals has been charged with two counts of burglary.

A grand jury on Tuesday also indicted Davion Irvin. for six misdemeanors of non-livestock animal cruelty, CNN reported.

Irvin was arrested on February 2, days after the authorities announced that two tamarin monkeys were taken from their habitat at the Dallas Zoo. He was detained near the Dallas World Aquarium, where he was asking specific questions about caring for primates.

An employee recognized him from ongoing news coverage of the zoo robbery and immediately alerted authorities.

According to arrest warrant affidavits, Irvin told police he jumped a fence to enter the zoo on the night of Jan. 29 and then opened the monkey enclosure before fleeing on a DART train.

Both monkeys, named Bella and Finn, were found unharmed in an abandoned house in Lancaster, a Dallas suburb, and were later returned to the zoo.

Irvin also allegedly broke into the zoo in the early morning of January 13 and cut through the fence surrounding the habitat of a clouded leopard named Nova with the intent to steal it. He later told investigators that he was petting the 25-pound animal. cat, but he couldn’t catch her, according to affidavits.

Irvin abandoned his plan to take Nova, but the clouded leopard managed to slip through the opening he made in his enclosure. His escape forced the zoo to close for several hours while they searched for the missing animal. Finally it was located near its habitat.

Police also believe that Irvin opened the enclosure for the langur monkeys at the zoo, but those animals did not escape.