Tiger King star announces prison engagement | US News
Tiger King star Joe Exotic has announced he is engaged to a fellow prison inmate.
The 61-year-old, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, revealed on X that he plans to marry 33-year-old Jorge Marquez.
“He is so amazing and is from Mexico,” he wrote. “Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we [will] be leaving America when we both get out.
“Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.”
Exotic rose to fame on the hit Netflix documentary series Tiger King, which followed the rivalry between his zoo and a big cat sanctuary run by Carole Baskin.
He is serving a 21-year prison sentence after trying to hire two different men to kill Baskin, who had accused him of treating his animals poorly.
Prosecutors said Exotic had offered $10,000 to an undercover FBI agent to kill his rival, telling them: “Just like follow her into a mall parking lot and just cap her and drive off.”
Exotic has always denied the accusations, and his lawyers said he was not being serious.
The 61-year-old was also convicted of killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records.
His zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, has since closed down.
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Exotic is reported to have said he has submitted a marriage application to the federal prison to wed Mr Marquez.
Exotic famously had an unofficial three-way marriage with long-time partner John Finlay and then 19-year-old Travis Maldonado. Mr Maldonado and Exotic later officially married in 2015, but Finlay became estranged.
In October 2017, Mr Maldonado died from a self-inflicted, accidental gunshot wound.
Two months later, Exotic married Dillon Passage, but Passage later announced he was filing for divorce.