Antoine Yates – the Harlem man caught last year with a 400-pound tiger in his apartment – was growling at an Ohio animal shelter yesterday after officials there wouldn’t let him visit his beloved kitty.
“We drove all the way there for nothing,” a heartbroken Yates told The Post. “You can imagine how disappointed I feel.”
Yates, 31, made a beeline for his feline Friday morning, driving more than 400 miles to the grand opening of the Noah’s Lost Ark animal sanctuary in Berlin Center, Ohio.
Shelter officials took about 20 local reporters and photographers on a tour of the new facility.
But they told Yates, his lawyer and two bodyguards they weren’t welcome because the sanctuary was still under construction.
“I was sad,” he said. “Just real sad. It’s disappointing and upsetting. Nobody understands.”
Officials told Yates the opening was rescheduled for next Saturday.
The distraught cat lover said he would make the trip from New York again – even though he laid out $2,000 of his own money for this weekend’s trek.
“I’ll be back,” he said. “I hope they have the sympathy and the compassion to let me in.”
A statement released yesterday by Noah’s Lost Ark said Yates was denied entry because he “has shown his true intentions by his actions today arriving unannounced, uninvited and with the press.”
Director Ellen Whitehouse later told The Post Yates would not be admitted if he returns next weekend. “I just don’t believe it’s in the best interests of that cat.”
Yates hasn’t seen his tiger, named Ming, since cops took it from his Harlem apartment last October. His trial on reckless endangerment charges is due to start June 9.