SPOKANE - A macaque monkey that escaped its owner and bit three people last month will be euthanized and tested for rabies.

KREM

Because Chico bit three people, he has to be tested for rabies, and there's no way to test for rabies without killing him.

Dr. Larry Jecha, acting head of the Spokane Regional Health District, signed Chico's death warrant Sunday afternoon. Health officials said that because the monkey bit three people, it has to be tested for rabies, and there's no way to test for rabies without killing it.

Chico's owner could face a misdemeanor charge of keeping an inherently dangerous animal, Assistant City Attorney Tim Szambelan said Friday. He declined to identify the owner because no charges had been filed.

Wild animals can spread diseases to humans, "which is one reason why we have an ordinance to protect citizens from being bit," Szambelan said.

The three people were bitten while walking near the home where the monkey lived. They were treated for minor bite wounds by medics and health department officials have talked with them about possible follow-up treatment, he said.

Health department spokeswoman Cathy Cochrane said there is a very remote chance that the bites could spread rabies or the monkey version of herpes B virus.

The Java macaque is native to southeast Asia and South Pacific islands, but Szambelan said its owner told authorities it was born in Florida and purchased from a "recognized place where you can get monkeys," he said.

The Spokesman-Review reported Friday that the macaque crossed paths with law enforcement before. In 2005, federal agents serving warrants in an investigation into a Spokane-based Internet operation selling fake college degrees encountered the monkey in a Spokane Valley home.

The home's owner kept the macaque when she subsequently moved to Spokane, the newspaper reported. The woman, who pleaded guilty last April to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud in the diploma mill case, is awaiting sentencing, the newspaper said.

One detective told the newspaper the primate acted menacingly and threw feces at the armed officers serving a federal search warrant to seize computers and other evidence.

Agents did not report the macaque to animal control officials at that time because they were focused on gathering evidence in their worldwide diploma mill investigation, the detective said.

"I didn't get hit," one detective told the newspaper. "But it was a mean monkey."

Two charged with smuggling monkey

In another case, a Spokane couple and a woman from Northport, Wash., have been charged with smuggling a young rhesus macaque monkey into the United States from Asia.

Gypsy Lawson, 27, her boyfriend, James Edward Pratt, 33, and her mother, Fran Ogren, 55, are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Spokane on March 20.

Lawson told The Spokesman Review newspaper she bought the monkey for several hundred dollars from someone in southern California. She says she didn't get the monkey in Thailand, as court documents say.

Lawson calls the infant monkey "Apoo," which she says means "grandfather." The monkey was taken from her when federal agents searched her home in January.