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'No job or income': Broke 'Tiger King' star Joe Exotic cannot pay Carole Baskin $800K garnishment

Joe Exotic is serving a 21-year sentence in Atlanta for hiring hitmen to kill Carole Baskin
UPDATED APR 4, 2023
Joe Exotic is too broke to pay Carole Baskin $800,000 as per what the court ruled  (Twitter)
Joe Exotic is too broke to pay Carole Baskin $800,000 as per what the court ruled (Twitter)

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Joe Exotic, 60, is reportedly so broke that he cannot pay Carole Baskin the judgement money, according to the 'Tiger King' star's manager Tamara Springer. Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, was found guilty of hatching a murder-for-hire plot to kill animal rights activist Baskin and is serving 21 years in a federal prison in Atlanta. 

“Joseph does not have a job in prison or any income,” Springer replied to a federal court summons to seize more than $800,000 Baskin won in a 2011 trademark infringement lawsuit against Exotic. "I do not have anything of value belonging to Joseph Maldonado, including property or cash. I am an unpaid volunteer and have my own job and business, for which I pay my own taxes," she wrote in a handwritten filing on March 31, per RadarOnline.

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(Netflix)
Joe Exotic opened the zoo in honor of his brother Garold who died in a car accident in 1997 (Netflix)

According to the filings obtained by RadarOnline, Springer wrote in the filings, "I am his power of attorney, so I have the legal authority to do his banking and handle his finances, but he doesn't really have any -- other than the money the fans donate to his commissary which they pay directly into the prison. I figure they are feeding all this information to Carole, and she probably thinks that I have all this money, but I don't." Springer scrawled “N/A” and many zeros on the worksheet meant to detail Exotic’s earnings. 

It may be recalled that in his heyday, Exotic's net worth was between $10M and $15M, according to Cheat Sheet.

Is Joe Exotic running for presidency?

Exotic announced on Twitter he will run for office in 2024, in March. His tweet read, “It's official! I am now a candidate for President of the United States in 2024.” He also added a link to his campaign website, that read, "Thank you for your interest in my Campaign. Yes, I know I am in Federal Prison and you might think this is a joke but it's not. It is my Constitutional right to do this even from here." 



 

He added, “The only thing I did was put five very old, crippled tigers to sleep in the most humane way possible and it was approved by my USDA Inspector, so it's time to get over it. PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] kills thousands of animals a year. Carole has killed over 226 big cats and most of you eat some kind of animal every day, so it's time to move past this issue." 



 

People in prison can run for president, according to the rules. In 1920, socialist candidate Eugene Debs ran for president while serving a 10-year term for sedition at a federal prison in Georgia. In 1992, conspiracy theorist and far-right activist Lyndon LaRouche ran for president while being convicted of mail fraud.

What happened to Joe Exotic's zoo?

Exotic signed over his empire to investor Jeff Lowe to keep Baskin from getting her hands on the property. Later, Baskin acquired control of the zoo in 2020 in a trademark lawsuit against Exotic. She sold it off the following year with the terms of sale being the new owners cannot use the property as a zoo or as a place to keep exotic animals for the next 100 years. "When we sold the property in June, we required that it never be used as a zoo, or for anything related to ‘Tiger King’ or anything like that,” Baskin said, as per Yahoo!

'Joe Exotic'(Twitter)
Joe Exotic signed over his zoo empire to Jeff Lowe in 2015 and it was later won by Carole Basking in 2020 (joe_exotic/Twitter)

Where is Carole Baskin?

Baskin is still the CEO and owner of Big Cat Rescue that is working hard to "provide the best home we can for the cats in our care, end abuse of big cats in captivity, and prevent extinction of big cats in the wild," according to her website. She also works with animal rights organizations such as PETA to completely stop the practice of owning big cats.

Carole Baskin attends a screening of THE CONSERVATION GAME at Eaton Hotel on June 24, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Carole Baskin attends a screening of THE CONSERVATION GAME at Eaton Hotel on June 24, 2021 in Washington, DC (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

She has also appeared in a discovery+ docuseries, 'Carole Baskin's Cage Fight', which was all about her fight to prevent injustice to animals and her activism. "When people see Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, that's who I really am. That's my real voice; that's me out there really chasing down those bad guys," Baskin told Today, adding, "It's not just a bunch of talking heads that are trash-talking each other. This is real stuff where people are going to be in the trenches, literally, with me."

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