Editor's Note: Be aware that this story contains descriptions of animal abuse.
The subject of Netflix's new docuseries [1] Tiger King [2], Joe Exotic, or Joseph Maldonado-Passage, built a colourful zoo empire at the Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park, profiting off of animals that he had bred. Even after a $1 million lawsuit and multiple accusations of animal abuse [3], his legacy didn't come to a crashing halt until he faced two murder-for-hire charges against Carole Baskin, one of his most vocal critics. So where is the infamous Joe Exotic now? Long story short, he's in jail.
First, a little context. Over his career as a zookeeper, Maldonado-Passage developed a collection that exceeded a thousand creatures. Along with his animals, he fostered a larger-than-life personality with his blond mullet and off-colour jokes on YouTube. He had many run-ins in the animal-rights community, including a $25,000 fine from the US Department of Agriculture [4] for poor animal maintenance and an exposé from PETA. Still, his hardest hit came from Baskin, the CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a Tampa, FL-based wildlife sanctuary. Accusing him of using her company logo, she sued him for trademark infringement and was then awarded $1 million in 2013 [5].
Maldonado-Passage viciously attacked Baskin on social media after the lawsuit. The case pushed him into filing for bankruptcy and selling the zoo to animal breeder Jeff Lowe [6]. Once a firebrand personality, Maldonado-Passage was arrested in September 2018 [7] on two charges of attempted murder for hire against Baskin. At the end of 2017, he had, unknowingly, offered money to an undercover FBI agent to kill Baskin [8] right after doing so with a separate hitman.
On top of his attempted murder-for-hire charges, investigators also uncovered that Maldonado-Passage had shot five tigers on his premises and falsified wildlife records for interstate transactions, which violated the Lacey Act. Even in jail, he kept busy. Maldonado-Passage conducted a lion-cub sale through his husband Dillon Passage [9], according to a recording played in his trial.
Maldonado-Passage maintained that Lowe had set him up [10], but to no avail. He was convicted of two counts of murder for hire, eight violations of the Lacey Act, and nine violations of the Endangered Species Act. The 56-year-old received a 22-year prison sentence [11] in 2020. As for the zoo, Lowe removed any remaining traces of Maldonado-Passage from the property. He then made plans to relocate the animals to a zoo near Thackerville [12].