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Tiger King star Joe Exotic likely to have prison sentenced reduced as court vacates original 22-year term

A court has ordered a likely reduction to the prison sentence that Tiger King star Joe Exotic is serving for abusing animals and plotting to murder rescue campaigner Carole Baskin.

The former Oklahoma zoo owner, real name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, was sentenced to serve 22 years in prison in 2020 on charges of murder for hire and animal abuse.

However, on Wednesday a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver found that his prison term had been wrongly calculated under sentencing guidelines.

The panel agreed that the two charges should have been treated as one conviction at sentencing, because they both involved the same goal of killing Ms Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida and also appeared in the Netflix documentary.

The judges said that Maldonado-Passage should have been sentenced to somewhere between 17 and a half years and 22 years in prison, rather than between 22 years and 27 years.

The documentary subject will now be re-sentenced by a lower court and could see years shaved off of his sentence, though the 58-year-old is likely to continue to face the prospect of more than a decade behind bars.

He previously launched an unsuccessful campaign to get a pardon from former US president Donald Trump, after the then president’s son Donald Trump Jr appeared to suggest he would push for the move.

However, Maldonado-Passage’s name was absent from an extensive list of pardons granted by Mr Trump prior to his exit from office, which largely bailed out those with convictions connected to his own administration.

The zoo owner later complained: “I was too innocent and too GAY to deserve a pardon from Trump… his corrupt friends all come first.”

In June, Ms Baskin was awarded ownership of Maldonado-Passage’s former zoo. 

Reference: Microsoft News: Nick Duffy