“Tiger King” star Joe Exotic is pleading for a pardon from President Joe Biden, claiming that he could be facing multiple forms of cancer at once and needs to be released to receive proper care.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is serving a 22-year prison sentence for attempting to hire a hitman to murder Carole Baskin, the Big Cat Rescue founder he considered his nemesis, as well as for federal wildlife violations. But in a rambling series of messages posted on Twitter, he claimed ― as he had in the past ― that “city cops” and the U.S. Justice Department were “out of control with corruption.”
Biden, he said, could “make this right and sign that pardon that Trump left behind so I can go home and get proper medical care and proper food.”
Exotic and his attorneys had lobbied then-President Donald Trump for a pardon, and were so optimistic he would receive one that they had a limousine standing by to take him home from prison. When the pardon never materialized, Exotic slammed Trump for issuing pardons instead to “his corrupt friends.”
Now, Exotic said, his PSA levels were high and he may have prostate cancer, he has mouth sores, is losing weight and has multiple medical exams scheduled:
Joe Exotic and those around him became instant celebrities last spring when the documentary series “Tiger King” hit Netflix just after the first coronavirus shutdowns began. However, several figures from his past said anyone who felt sympathetic toward him after watching the series got the wrong impression.
Rick Kirkham, who had been working on his own series with Exotic until the footage was destroyed in a suspicious fire, called him “pure evil.”
“He enjoyed seeing people and animals hurt,” Kirkham told The Daily Beast last year. “He enjoyed it. He got off on it.”
A juror at Exotic’s trial said the “Tiger King” was convicted based on strong evidence, including details not seen in the series.
“Don’t believe everything you see because there was so much more to it than what they’re showing you,” the juror, identified only as Kristin, told Nancy Grace of Fox Nation.