Joe Exotic Convicted of Murder-for-Hire Plot Against Animal Rights Rival

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, the eccentric operator of the G.W. Zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, was convicted in April 2019 of attempting to hire someone to murder Carole Baskin, the founder of Big Cat Rescue and a rival in the exotic animal industry.

In November 2017, Exotic approached two individuals about killing Baskin, offering several thousand dollars to carry out the murder in Florida. He provided one worker with $3,000 in cash, a cell phone, and a fake identification document to travel to the state. Unknown to Exotic at the time, one of the men he had contacted was an undercover FBI informant.

Federal prosecutors charged Exotic following a grand jury indictment in September 2018. The initial charges alleged he had hired an unnamed person and an undercover FBI agent to murder "Jane Doe"—identified as Carole Baskin—in Florida. Exotic was arrested in September 2018 on murder-for-hire charges alongside violations of federal wildlife laws.

A superseding indictment filed in November 2018 expanded the charges against him. New counts included falsifying wildlife records, unlawfully killing five tigers in October 2017, and selling or offering tiger cubs for sale across state lines in violation of interstate commerce laws.

At trial in April 2019, a federal jury found Exotic guilty on all counts: two counts of murder-for-hire, eight counts of violating the Lacey Act (which prohibits falsifying wildlife records), and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act violations stemmed from the killing of tigers and their illegal interstate sale.

Exotic was initially sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on January 22, 2020, at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. However, in July 2021, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that his sentence should be reduced, consolidating his two murder-for-hire convictions into a single count. He was resentenced on January 28, 2022, to 21 years in prison.

During the resentencing hearing, Carole Baskin testified before the court about her fear of threats should Exotic be released from prison. Her testimony contributed to the court's decision to maintain a substantial sentence despite the merger of charges.

The investigation involved multiple federal agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Downing announced the original sentencing.

The case gained international attention following the release of the Netflix documentary series "Tiger King" in 2020, which chronicled the rivalry between Exotic and Baskin and their competing interests in big cat ownership and breeding. The documentary brought widespread public attention to the circumstances surrounding Exotic's arrest and conviction, though the series was released after his initial sentencing.

Exotic continues to serve his sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth.

**Sources:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Exotic https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdok/pr/joe-exotic-sentenced-22-years-murder-hire-and-violating-lacey-act-and-endangered https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/joe-exotic-trial-begins-with-accounts-of-murder-for-hire-plot-shooting-sedated-tigers/