AFP
The eccentric zookeeper Joe Exotic, 58, the protagonist of a successful documentary broadcast on the Netflix platform, did not convince the American justice to release him. He was sentenced this Friday (28) to more than 20 years in prison for attempted murder.
The “king of the tigers”, whose real name is Joe Maldonado-Passage, had been sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in prison for ordering the murder of his close enemy Carole Baskin. Due to a procedural error, a federal court ordered a reduction in the sentence.
During a hearing in Oklahoma City to determine his new sentence, Joe Exotic asked for a “second chance”, according to local media. “Don’t let me die in prison,” cried the defendant, who has prostate cancer.
Baskin, on the other hand, asked the judge to keep Joe behind bars, saying he had always feared for his life. Finally, the magistrate maintained the sentence of 20 years and four months of imprisonment, according to court documents.
The trajectory of exuberant Joe Exotic, who managed to amass a small fortune thanks to a zoo opened in 1999 in Oklahoma, before losing everything, amused millions of people confined during the release of the documentary “The Tiger Mafia” at the beginning of the pandemic.
The series focused on Joe’s conflict with Baskin, an animal advocate. She accuses him of animal abuse and had pledged to make her zoo go bankrupt.
In the end, Joe ended up offering thousands of dollars to two hitmen to kill Baskin, but one of them was an undercover cop to catch him in the act.
A continuation of the documentary series, “Tiger Mafia 2”, was released in November by the streaming platform. The production also drew a crowd of spectators.
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