Earlier this year, Joe Exotic, the subject of Netflix’s wildly popular documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, shared a statement on his Facebook page that he was seeking a presidential pardon from his 22-year prison sentence having been convicted of 17 counts of animal abuse and two counts of murder-for-hire of his rival Carole Baskin. Now Exotic is taking his efforts for pardon to the next level with a 257-page letter pleading his case that he plans to send to the White House this week.
Per TMZ (via Consequence of Sound), Joe Exotic — whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage — is sending a team of lawyers to Washington DC with the hope of getting his letter and case file in front of Donald Trump. Per the report, Exotic’s letter contains the basis for why he believes he should be pardoned, including not only the health concerns he’s previously raised, but some new claims as well. Exotic claims in his letter that he has been “sexually assaulted by jail staff, beat up and tied in a chair to the point the skin came off my arms” with Exotic further claiming that his “hands are damaged from the abuse in jail so I’m sorry for the soppy [sic] writing and spelling.”
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Exotic also claims in his letter that his threats to kill Baskin were hyperbole and just part of his showmanship, though the argument does not that even as jokes they were in poor taste. The letter goes even further, though, and claims that his convictions are a result of homophobia, blaming his sentence on a wide range of people, including his former partner Jeff Lowe and the judge in his case — Exotic has previously filed a false arrest lawsuit that includes some of these claims. Exotic also includes character references, including one from his husband Dillon Passage who calls Exotic “a sweet, bit heart man, with good intentions.”
Exotic’s attempt to get Trump to pardon him is just the latest unusual chapter in the already odd Tiger King saga. Last month, Exotic offered to help authorities figure out what happened to Baskin’s husband Don Lewis — Lewis mysteriously disappeared in 1997, an event that served as a major plot point of the Tiger King docuseries. And, in terms of Baskin, just last week it was announced that Baskin had been added to the cast of the upcoming 29th season of Dancing With the Stars.
What do you think about Exotic’s efforts to get a pardon from President Donald Trump? Let us know in the comments.
