“Joe Exotic” — the ex-Oklahoma zookeeper and former candidate for governor who was accused in a fedꩲeral murder-for-hire plot last year — was found guilty Tuesday on all charges.
The 56-year-old, real name Josepꦰh Maldonado-Passage, had been charged with ꦐpaying someone to kill a sanctuary owner in Florida who had criticized his treatment of animals. The individual was not harmed.
Maldonado-Passage, who entered a not guilty plea, tried testifying in his own defense Monday — against the judge’s wishes, according to local reports. He wound up being convicted on two counts of hiring a person to commit murder.
An FBI agent was able to bust Maldonado-Passage by posing as an underco𓂃ve🦋r hit man. The former zookeeper claimed he knew that he was being duped and played along to gather information.
Prosecutors, however, provided evidence at the trial — including more than a dozen videos and Facebook posts of “Joe Exotic” threatening to kill the sanctuary operator, Carole Baskin — to prove that he was out for blood.
“You want to know why Carole Baskin better never, ever, ever see me face to face ever, ever, ever again?” Maldonado-Passage reportedly asked in one clip, before shooting a blowup “Carole” doll in the head with a revolver. “That is how sick and tired of this … I am.”
Baskin told jurors that the “onslaught” of threats prompted her to obtain a concealed carry permit — which allows her to carry a gun at all times.
“I felt like my life was in danger,” she told The Oklahoman. “I believe that he blames me for everything that’s gone wrong in his life.”
Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, had been fighting to stop Maldonado-Passage from owning tiger cubs and using them in a traveling show that he ran. She once sued the blond-haired zookeeper for more than $1 million after he renamed the show “Big Cat Rescue Entertainment.”
In addition to t🎶he murder-for-hire plot, Maldonado-Passage was also accuse♕d of killing tigers and selling cubs. He was found guilty Tuesday on those charges, as well.
PETA praised the convictions in a statement, saying he has been on the group’s radar “for years” as a “notorious animal abuser and as the primary supplier of big-cat cubs for the cruel cub-petting industry.”
“PETA already succeeded in getting 39 tigers, three bears, two baboons, and two chimpanzees out of his hands and into reputable sanctuaries,” . “The world will be a safer place for all living beings with this man behind bars, where he can no longer harm animals or the animal advocates he hanged in effigy.”