'Tiger King': Joe Exotic's $89 million lawsuit and why he feels he's been falsely accused
The star of Netflix's hit docuseries 'Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness' is currently serving a 22-year sentence for a murder-for-hire plot against his archnemesis and animal activist Carole Baskin and killing five tiger cubs, which was a violation of the Endangered Species Act.
To say that the documentary is a hit is not cutting it — raking in 34 million viewers within the first 10 days and enjoying the streaming site's Top 10 list for 15 straight days. Taking advantage of the popularity of the show, Joe Exotic requested a presidential pardon and is making numerous settlement claims totaling $89 million.
Denying his all claims, he alleges that the civil case was part of an "entrapment scheme" and "malicious prosecution to further an animal rights agenda" and is demanding "$73,840,000.00 in damages and an additional $15,000,000.00 for false arrest, false imprisonment, discrimination, malicious prosecution, selective enforcement, misinterpreting the law and the death of Shirley Schreibvogel (his mother)", US Magistrate Judge Suzanne Mitchell noted in her April 7 report and recommendation.
"Because Plaintiff challenges the validity of his prosecution and conviction, the undersigned recommends dismissal," she wrote. Adding that the zoo owner has no lawyer and that his complaint was full of a "failure to cite proper legal authority, his confusion of various legal theories, his poor syntax and sentence construction, or his unfamiliarity with pleading requirements," she wrote that she advice him that he like other prisoners "file the case as a habeas corpus".
Believing that he will not get a fair trial, Joe Exotic had earlier also filed a motion with the District Court of Oklahoma asking Judge Scott Palk to rescue himself from his case - citing a 'major conflict of interest', he has labeled the judge homophobic.
"The Plaintiff argues that not only does Judge Scott Palk have a conflict of interest in all of these cases, but has a borderline conflict of being an animals rights advocate, and homophobic due to the hostile and agitated remarks made in open court toward the Plaintiff during the sentencing of the criminal case, of which he should have recused himself from the beginning of the criminal case," the motion stated.
"Remarks made like, 'I will make sure you are never around another animal the rest of your life' - the Plaintiff has never been accused of animal abuse in his life to deserve such a statement." The statement also goes on to claim that Palk was speaking in a "hostile voice" and defended the potential selling of lion cubs "which he didn't do, but even if he did, is legal in the state of Texas."
"So all of this was uncalled for remarks due to Judge Scott Palk's prejudice because of being involved in all the civil cases. So the Plaintiff is asking for the motion to have Judge Scott Palk rescue himself and a non-bias Judge to be appointed this case."
However, this was rejected by Judge Palk on Wednesday, April 8, who wrote, "The undersigned has presided over civil cases in this judicial district to which Plaintiff is a party. The undersigned has also presided over a criminal case resulting in Plaintiff's recent conviction and sentence on multiple federal offenses. After judgment was entered in Plaintiff's criminal proceedings, he filed this action… alleging violations of his federal constitutional rights. Plaintiff's… claims arise out of and are related to his criminal conviction."
"In sum, the undersigned has carefully reviewed the grounds upon which Plaintiff seeks recusal and finds those grounds are insufficient to warrant the requested relief," the Donald Trump-appointed judge stated.
"There is no objective basis upon which to find judicial bias or lack of impartiality," Palk adds. "It is therefore ordered that Plaintiff's Motion to Recuse is denied."
All of this indicates that the Tiger King drama will not be coming to an end anytime soon. Especially considering how Investigation Discovery exclusive series 'Investigating the Strange World of Joe Exotic' is in the making and TMZ and Fox are also working on an hour-long special 'TMZ Investigates: Tiger King – What Really Went Down?'.