'Tiger King' star Jeff Lowe says Joe Exotic paid for chopper to be flown over his zoo to drive animals crazy
Jeff Lowe, who gained recognition after appearing on hit Netflix documentary 'Tiger King,' has filed a new complaint against his nemesis and former owner of his zoo, Joe Exotic.
The docu-series revealed that Lowe was initially Exotic’s business partner at the zoo. However, their relationship deteriorated drastically over a period of time to the point where Lowe cooperated with investigators on the crimes that Exotic was accused of that ultimately landed the latter in jail for 22 years. In the new lawsuit, Lowe has claimed that Exotic hired a helicopter to be flown over the zoo, which had ended up scaring the animals.
According to TMZ, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "received an official complaint about a chopper illegally flying over Lowe’s Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park Sunday afternoon in Oklahoma." The complaint was made by Lowe's wife, Lauren on Monday, May 11.
You can watch the video here.
Lowe reportedly told the publication that at one point, the helicopter was hovering over the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park’s gift shop and the noise from the chopper made the animals go "nuts". He claimed that he knew that the stunt had been pulled by Exotic because the tail number on the chopper matched one featured in a video by Tiger King’s legal team.
Exotic's rep, Eric Love, has denied that his client had anything to do with the helicopter and said that none of his team members had any knowledge of the incident. He also added that the chopper in question, they used for the video, was chartered and not owned.
Recently Exotic's legal team made a video to beg President Donald Trump to get him out of prison. The video in question claimed that not only was Exotic, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, not guilty of the crimes that he had been convicted of, but he was actually framed.
Exotic was convicted of two counts of murder-for-hire to kill a rival animal rights activist, Carole Baskin, eight counts of violating the Lacey Act for falsifying wildlife records, and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act.
The clip showed Exotic's team had painted a large bus, which was seen emblazoned with the words “Team King” and “President Trump please pardon Joe Exotic”.
“A team the size of Texas has been assembled to handle the case of Joe Exotic,” Francisco Hernandez, an attorney in Texas, said in the video, adding that they intended to prove Eotic's innocence.
Love, who claimed to be Exotic’s executive manager and “lead investigator,” said: "We’ve built an army of attorneys to assist in the appeal process and right this monumental injustice."
His team has already appealed Exotic's conviction and has also filed a $94 malicious prosecution lawsuit against United States Federal Wildlife Service, the United States Department of Interior, and Lowe.
Furthermore, Exotic's team had requested a judge to throw out the testimony of Allan Glover, who testified he was hired to kill Carole Baskin on Exotic's orders. The team has argued that Glover had a longstanding feud with Exotic and that the testimony against him was "payback".
No charges were brought against Glover as he claimed that he never had any intention of going through with the hit.