‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic transferred to prison medical facility following cancer diagnosis
- Joe Exotic’s lawyer said the former zookeeper had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was getting medical treatment and tests ‘for a host of issues’
- The Netflix documentary star was sentenced in 2020 to 22 years in prison after being convicted of trying to hire men to kill animal activist Carole Baskin
The former Oklahoma zookeeper known as Joe Exotic, a prominent figure in the Netflix documentary series Tiger King, has been transferred to a medical facility in North Carolina for federal inmates after a cancer diagnosis, according to his lawyer.
Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was flown on a plane to be transferred from a federal medical centre in Fort Worth, Texas, to a federal medical centre in Butner, North Carolina, late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, defence lawyer John Phillips said in a statement. Phillips, who tweeted his statement on Saturday, said the transfer originally was scheduled for later this month
Phillips said Maldonado-Passage told him that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was getting medical treatment and tests “for a host of issues.” Phillips said prison medical care “isn’t the best and justice is slow.”
“It’s a competition of life and liberty no one wants any part of,” he added.
In July, a federal appeal court ruled that Maldonado-Passage should get a shorter prison sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws.
He was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill Florida animal rights activist Carole Baskin. A three-judge panel of the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver found that the trial court wrongly treated those two convictions separately in calculating his prison term under sentencing guidelines.
The appeal court panel said his advisory sentencing range should be between 17-and-a-half years and just under 22 years rather than between just under 22 years and 27 years in prison, as the trial court calculated.
Maldonado-Passage and his blond mullet were featured in the Netflix documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.
Meanwhile, Baskin, of Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue sanctuary, lost an effort to stop Netflix and a production company from using previously recorded video of her and her husband in the Tiger King sequel.
A federal magistrate judge issued a recommendation on Friday denying the Baskins’ bid to block use of the footage as an impermissible prior restraint under the First Amendment.
