He's unleashed the tiger... from jail
The star of Netflix's mega-hit documentary series, Joe Exotic, is launching a tirade of lawsuits from his jail cell.
Joe Exotic, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, has filed a federal lawsuit against various government agencies, as well as his former business partner Jeff Lowe - amounting to $94 million in damages. Dubbed "The Tiger King", Joe believes that he has been wrongfully arrested and imprisoned.
The lawsuit has been filed by the Netflix star from his cell in the Grandy County Jail in Oklahoma. The Joe Exotic lawsuit against the US Department of Interior, the US Fish and Wildlife Services, and government agents, reads that he is being "discriminated against because he is the only person charged with this statute because [he] is an openly gay male with the largest collection of generic tigers and crossbreed."
According to the suit, Joe accuses them of violating his civil rights, and he has demanded $73,840,000 for loss of personal property. An additional $15 million for his false arrest, false imprisonment, selective enforcement and the death of his mother, Shirley.
The other Joe Exotic lawsuit being filed by the tiger lover is against his former colleague Jeffrey Lowe. Joe claims that Lowe was filing false statements to federal agents during their time in business together.
In his statement, Exotic said of Lowe: "He was the main person in this entrapment scheme to take my zoo for free. Changed my medicine with illegal drugs, stole my animals under fraudulent reasons."
The zookeeper also alleged that Lowe "had the most to gain" by his mother’s death.
The Joe Exotic lawsuit comes after he was found guilty in 2019 for paying a hitman to kill his rival, Carole Baskin. Baskin has recently come out to blast the Netflix documentary series.
Via Entertainment Weekly.