Joe Maldonado-Passage
Legal advocates for Joseph Maldonado-Passage (a.k.a. “Joe Exotic“) are on the road with their fight to get the convicted animal man out of prison. The team is driving to Washington, D.C., where they want to ask Donald Trump to grant a pardon to the infamous federal prison inmate, according to TMZ. The vehicle they’re using can accurately be described as a giant double-decker bus featuring both Maldadono-Passage’s visage and the face of a tiger.
“Thank you to all the fans that have honked,” Eric Love, a private investigator said.
Maldonado-Passage, the inmate, remains at Fort Worth FMC. He was convicted last year of abusing tigers and for trying to stage a murder-for-hire plot against his rival Carole Baskin.
The attention-seeking zookeeper — who previously ran for both Oklahoma governor and U.S. president — has long been in the public eye. That became even more true through the Netflix docuseries Tiger King. The show largely focused on Maldonado-Passage’s point of view and examined the argument that he was set up.
In April, President Trump said he would “take a look” at the Exotic case when a reporter asked about it during a coronavirus task force briefing.
It wouldn’t be unusual for Trump to issue clemency or a pardon under a personal plea, at least if a famous person intervenes. That’s how people like Jack Johnson and Alice Marie Johnson got theirs.
A woman named only as Kristin, one of the jurors who convicted Maldonado-Passage, criticized the docuseries. She said it wasn’t “even close to what we saw in court.” She defended the guilty verdict. Asked about the possibility of a pardon, Kristin suggested that Trump didn’t know about the case and that he was only answering to move onto the next question. She did say that she respected the process and that she would accept it if Maldonado-Passage either received a pardon or had his sentence shortened.
[Screengrab via Netflix]