Sources Confident 'Joe Exotic' To Be Pardoned Tuesday

Joe Maldonado-Passage, best known as Joe Exotic, is confident he will be pardoned Tuesday by President Donald Trump, sources close to Maldonado-Passage told News 9.

Maldonado-Passage had been sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison on two counts of murder-for-hire, eight counts of violating the Lacey Act for falsifying wildlife records and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act.

He formerly ran an exotic animal zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and was convicted of trying to hire at least two people to kill a woman in Florida.

However, his fame shot up after the release of Netflix's docuseries "Tiger King" in which it followed Joe Exotic for years before and after his federal arrest.

The woman Maldonado-Passage is accused of trying to have killed was Carole Baskin. Baskin owns Big Cat Animal Rescue in Florida, and she and Maldonado-Passage had been in a decade-long feud.

Baskin's feud with Joe Exotic began over her adamant opposition to cub petting, and she later won a $1 million judgement against Joe Exotic after he changed his name to Big Cat Rescue, the same as Baskin's organization.