Joe Exotic has announced he’s engaged, despite being in the middle of a 21-year federal prison sentence.
“Meet Jorge Marquez, he’s 33. He’s so amazing and from Mexico,” Exotic, 61, wrote in his post on X (formerly Twitter) this week while incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth.
“Now the quest to get married in prison and get him asylum or we’ll leave America when we both get out,” the Garden City, Kansas, resident added. “Anyway, I wish I’d met him a long time ago.”
The Tiger King claims he filed a marriage petition at the federal prison to marry Marquez, according to the man also known as Joseph Maldonado-Passage.
His fiancée is in custody on immigration-related charges, according to a report from CBS News.
Joe Exotic, 61, announced he was engaged to fellow inmate Jorge Marquez, 33, while both are in custody at the Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth.
Not only are both men optimistic that the prison will approve their marriage applications, they also still have “high hopes” that Exotic’s appeal in his entire case, including his conviction for hiring hitmen to kill animal activist Carole Baskin, will be successful.
He claims to have evidence such as “video confessions under oath” and “700 telephone recordings of federal agents.”
In his press release, Exotic requested a presidential pardon for himself and his fiancée, as well as asylum for Marquez.
“I wish that whoever is president or wins the presidency would do the right thing and pardon me so that I could move past this nightmare that my own country has created for the past seven years of my life,” Maldonado shared. ‘All I did was build a zoo and some people were very jealous. Then I was put in prison by my own country.’
In a telephone interview with Entertainment tonight Maldonado-Passage released details on where the trial currently stands.
“We submitted our official marriage certificate paperwork to the jail yesterday, so we’re just waiting for approval,” Exotic explained. “He has picked December 12 as the date we hope to get this approved.”
He claims their marriage application “must be approved by the director, psychiatry and chaplain” before their license can be approved.
“We love each other very much, spend every minute of every day together,” the Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness star revealed.
So-called Tiger King says his fiancée, born in Mexico, hopes for asylum after prison or ‘we’ll leave America when we both get out’
Exotic, also known as Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on 17 federal charges of animal cruelty and two counts of attempted murder for hire for the plot to kill Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin, but a U.S. appeals court reduced the sentence in 2019 up to 21 years
He added: “I’ve been through some things in my days. I’ve buried two husbands, the third one walked away with $2.6 million from Netflix and left my a** here, but Jorge is a great young man.”
Exotic was previously married to the late Travis Maldonado, who died after accidentally shooting himself in 2017, and Dillon Passage, whom he hooked up with two months later. Their relationship ended when they decided to split in 2020 and filed for divorce the following year.
In 2019, Exotic was sentenced to 22 years in prison on 17 federal charges of animal cruelty and two counts of attempted murder for hire for the plot to kill Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin.
Two years later, after filing a motion for a new trial, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the convictions for the two murder attempts were improperly treated as separate, and as a result, his sentence was reduced by a year and he was eventually re-sentenced sentenced to 21 years. in prison at the end of January 2022.
The Kansas native has pushed for his conviction to be overturned, and has pushed for a presidential pardon of whoever becomes president on January 20, 2025.
Exotic has been subject to significant criticism, especially due to the controversies surrounding his feud with Baskin and the treatment of animals at the GW Zoo.
He has appeared in several documentaries, including the popular Netflix series Tiger King (2020-2021), which showcased his career as a zookeeper and his feud with Baskin, and two by Louis Theroux entitled America’s Most Dangerous Pets (2011) and Shooting Joe. Exotic (2021).
There has also been a television drama show based primarily on the relationship between Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic called Joe vs. Carole, which aired on Peacock on March 3, 2022.
Carole Baskin was at the center of the murder plot that sent Exotic to prison
Exotic is ‘optimistic’ that he will be released from prison in 2025, and already has ideas for life after behind bars, including a career in academia
Exotic is “optimistic” that he will be released from prison in 2025, and already has ideas for life after behind bars, including a career in academia.
The plan is that one day he will share his wealth of tiger knowledge in an educational setting, which could be done by giving lectures.
Earlier this month, Roger appealed the denial of a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, which was denied by the lower court.
According to his attorney Roger Roots, there is sufficient evidence to show that Joe’s first trial was “fundamentally riddled with errors” that “went to the heart of the allegations, and” if that evidence had been known at the time, he would not have done so. convicted.’
