Carole Baskin bought a home late last year ... with funds from her Big Cat Rescue org ... TMZ has learned.
Carole and her husband Howard got the Odessa, FL house for $895,000. The deed, obtained by TMZ, lists Big Cat Rescue as the property owner. There is no mortgage evident from the deed, so it appears the property was purchased outright with Big Cat Rescue funds.
BCR is a charitable org and Carole is the CEO. Carole tells TMZ, she bought the place after she and Howard sold their sanctuary/headquarters and moved the cats to the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas.
As for using charitable money to buy the house, we've done research and there's nothing illegal about the purchase, assuming she uses the house for the benefit of the charity.
But, using charitable funds to purchase the residence does raise the question -- how does this benefit the cats? Carole tells TMZ, she and Howard, who serves as Treasurer, are still running Big Cat Rescue. She says, "We are still in business and plan to be for at least the next 40 years. We needed a place to work from."
Carole also tells TMZ ... "There is nothing nefarious about purchasing the property we bought to replace it since it's used for our office work funding conservation programs in the wild, fundraising event, board meetings and storage of the records and equipment from the grounds we are vacating."