A federal choose resentenced the Tiger King star Joe Unique to 21 years in jail on Friday, decreasing his punishment by only a yr after pleas from the previous zookeeper for leniency as he begins remedy for most cancers.
“Please don’t make me die in jail ready for an opportunity to be free,” he informed a federal choose who resentenced him on a murder-for-hire cost.
Joe Unique, whose actual title is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was convicted in a case involving the animal welfare activist Carole Baskin. Each have been featured in Netflix’s Tiger King: Homicide, Mayhem and Insanity.
Sporting an orange jail jumpsuit, Maldonado-Passage nonetheless had his trademark mullet coiffure, however the bleach-blond was fading to grey.
Baskin and her husband additionally attended the proceedings, and he or she stated she was fearful that Maldonado-Passage might threaten her.
“He continues to harbor intense emotions of ailing will towards me,” she stated.
Friday’s court docket proceedings happened after a federal appeals court docket dominated final yr that the jail time period he's serving on a murder-for-hire conviction needs to be shortened.
Supporters packed the courtroom, some sporting animal-print masks and shirts that learn “Free Joe Unique.” His attorneys stated they might attraction each the resentencing and petition for a brand new trial.
The previous zookeeper was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in jail after he was convicted of attempting to rent two separate males to kill Baskin. A 3-judge panel of the tenth US circuit court docket of appeals agreed with Maldonado-Passage that the court docket ought to have handled them as one conviction at sentencing as a result of they each concerned the identical aim of killing Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for giant cats in Florida and had criticized Maldonado-Passage’s remedy of animals.
Prosecutors stated Maldonado-Passage supplied $10,000 to an undercover FBI agent to kill Baskin throughout a recorded December 2017 assembly. Within the recording, he informed the agent: “Similar to observe her right into a mall car parking zone and simply cap her and drive off.” Maldonado-Passage’s attorneys have stated their consumer – who as soon as operated a zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, about 65 miles (105km) south of Oklahoma Metropolis – wasn’t being severe.
Maldonado-Passage, who maintains his innocence, additionally was convicted of killing 5 tigers, promoting tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife information.
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