ONE year has passed since Tiger King took the world by a storm, with Joe Exotic shooting to superstardom.
But with the Netflix star thrown behind bars in 2019, one may be curious to know if he will ever get out of jail.
Is Joe Exotic still in prison?
Exotic is facing 22 years in a cell after he was found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin and for violating several wildlife laws.
Netflix sensation Tiger King followed Joe Exotic and his overseeing of the establishment of a controversial private zoo in Oklahoma. Much of the series hinged on Exotic’s long-running feud with Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida.
In what turned out to be a spectacular miscalculation, Joe Exotic‘s legal team were so confident his prison sentence would be pardoned by the then-President Donald Trump – they had a limo waiting for him outside the prison.
He would not step foot inside it, as Trump’s pardon never came. Exotic remained behind bars after Trump left him off his list of pardons that included 70 people, as well as the sentences of 73 others commuted on his last day as President.
Joe lost no hope, however, as he was convinced that the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, could find it in his heart to pardon him.
Back in May, Joe shared his cancer diagnosis with his Twitter following and, once again, asked for a presidential pardon.
He then pleaded Donald Trump’s successor and Vice-President Kamala Harris to let him “go home and get proper medical car and food.”
He also claimed that his previous request for clemency had been rejected because he was “too innocent and too GAY.”
This Thursday, July 15, 2021, a federal appeals court in Denver stated that Joe Exotic should have been given a shorter prison sentence.
The three-judge panel concluded that he was wrongfully treated by the court when calculating his prison sentence.
His advisory sentencing range should have been set between 17,5 years and right under 22 years, rather than between 22 and 27 years.
The appeals court ordered Joe, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, to be re-sentenced, which could lead him to an early release.
When is Joe Exotic’s release date?
In 2019, Exotic was convicted on 17 federal charges of animal abuse as well as two counts of attempted murder for hire.
He was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison, meaning as things stand his earliest possible release would come in the year 2041, at which time Exotic would be 80 years of age.
But with re-sentencing on the horizon, Joe Exotic could be released from jail as early as mid-2036.
Where is Joe Exotic?
Currently, Joe Exotic is situated in Federal Medical Centre Fort Worth, in Texas.
Exotic was originally incarcerated in Grady County Jail in Oklahoma, but in April 2020 – after a string of COVID-19 cases, he was moved to FMC Fort Worth as a safety precaution.
Exotic is deemed high-risk from coronavirus, and as of March 2021 it was reported that he was suffering from a blood-immune disorder and was being refused treatment in his current location.
He has also been diagnosed with prostate cancer in May, 2021.
He penned an open letter to his fans explaining the kind of treatment he has been subjected to during his sentence, writing: “As most people know, I was born with CVID [common variable immune deficiency] not COVID-19 and [hemoglobin] anemia and required blood infusions every 4 weeks.
“I have not had one since the end of January, I am [losing] weight, sores won’t heal, I’ll be dead in 2-3 months.
“It’s like I’ve been sent to death row, they’ve stopped all my medications except one, this place is Hell on Earth, and the mental torture of being locked in this room alone and not even hearing Dillon’s (his current partner) voice or a letter, I wish I could just have ended things when Travis (his former partner) died.”
