A Toronto judge has decided that a pet monkey that was first found loitering outside of an Ikea furniture store should stay in a sanctuary rather than go back to the woman who considers herself the monkey's mom.

In Dec. 2012, Darwin the Ikea monkey was spotted in a faux shearling coat and diaper after he escaped from a car. Darwin ran around the parking lot and near the store. Darwin caused a stir, becoming an Internet sensation.

The monkey was then taken away from Yasmin Nakhuda, the monkey's caregiver, by animal services and taken to Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary. Nakhuda was also fined $250 for the illegal ownership of an exotic pet.

Nakhuda protested on her YouTube channel showing how she cared for Darwin by feeding him and giving him his own bed, and filed a lawsuit against Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary. On Friday, Nakhuda lost the case.

According to the Ontario Superior Court Judge Mary Vallee, Darwin is still considered a wild animal despite Nakhuda's relationship with him. This is an important definition because according to the law, the owner of a wild animal is the party that is in possession of it.

Judge Vallee also determined that Toronto animal services did no wrong by seizing Darwin, a seizure which Nakhuda claimed was done illegally because they tricked her.

"Concerns about illegally imported monkey disease were good reasons to detain the monkey," Vallee said in her ruling.

Nakhuda also harmed her case by lying about she got the monkey; she originally claimed Darwin was a gift. Later, Nakhuda admitted that she obtained Darwin illegally from an exotic animal dealer for $5,000 when he was a little bit more than a month old.

"Ms. Nakhuda maintaining that the monkey was a gift shows that she was prepared to embellish the facts to improve her legal position," Judge Vallee wrote in the ruling. "This undermines her credibility."

Brownwyn Iller Page was the first to bring Darwin to Internet fame. "Umm saw a monkey in the ikea parking lot," Page said on her Twitter account with a photo of Darwin.

Neither Nakhuda nor Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary has commented on the ruling.

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