Tiger King: Joe Exotic Says Prison Won’t Let Him Write to Fans

Joe Exotic has reportedly gotten his letter-writing privileges reduced. After being transferred to Federal Medical Center Forth Worth, Exotic – real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage – claims the prison has only allowed him to send 15 letters out per week. According to a letter shared online by Exotic’s legal team, he gets around 175 letters in per week, meaning 160 or so will go unanswered. You can read the full letter below.

“I am so sorry you have to get a letter like this, this prison is doing everything to keep me from talking, so they have cut off me responding to each letter personally by only allowing 15 letters out a week. Hell I get 25 per day in so my legal team will be copying this to send to you, I do get to read your letters, thank you for your love, your kind words, and your support. Please keep my story alive and please keep asking our dear president to make this right and pardon me. I will continue to advocate for a fair and honest justice system for years to come. The world came together on its own to support a gay redneck and his husband so I know the world still has hope. “One Nation One World,” Be my voice.”

According to a supplementary letter shared with the main letter, Exotic’s legal team asks for fans to direct letters to the Regional Director of the Bureau of Prisons in an attempt to protest Exotic’s solitary confinement.

Exotic only recently began his 22-year prison sentence for the murder-for-hire plot that unfolded in Tiger King. The zoo operator was also charged and convicted of nearly two dozen animal rights violations. Netflix’s description for the record-breaking docuseries can be read below.

“Among the eccentrics and cult personalities in the stranger-than-fiction world of big cat owners, few stand out more than Joe Exotic, a mulleted, gun-toting polygamist and country western singer who presides over an Oklahoma roadside zoo. Charismatic but misguided, Joe and an unbelievable cast of characters including drug kingpins, conmen, and cult leaders all share a passion for big cats, and the status and attention their dangerous menageries garner. But things take a dark turn when Carole Baskin, an animal activist and owner of a big cat sanctuary, threatens to put them out of business, stoking a rivalry that eventually leads to Joe’s arrest for a murder-for-hire plot, and reveals a twisted tale where the only thing more dangerous than a big cat is its owner.”

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is now streaming in its entirety on Netflix.