The 55-year-old now faces 20 years imprisonment and a $500,000 fine if convicted of two counts of hiring a person to commit murder.
JENNIFER SMITH: ‘An Oklahoma tiger zoo owner has been arrested for allegedly trying to arrange the murder of an animal rights activist he had been feuding with for years. Joseph Maldonado Passage, 55, aka Joe Exotic, was arrested in Oklahoma on Friday on suspicion of plotting the murder of Carole Baskin, 57, an animal rights activist who runs a rescue sanctuary with her husband in Florida… Maldonado, who runs Wynnewood Zoo, made direct threats against Baskin in social media videos…
Their dispute dates back several years during which time Baskin and her husband have reported Maldonado for animal cruelty. They say that he is guilty of ripping tiger cubs from their mothers and keeping the animals in abysmal conditions. In 2013, Baskin was awarded a $1million judgement after suing him for renaming his business Big Cat Rescue Entertainment. It was in retaliation for Baskin reporting Maldonado and a group of malls across the country for allowing him to travel around with tiger cubs and set up makeshift petting zoos.
In Facebook videos, he advertised visits to the zoo by offering customers the chance to play with the tigers and ‘lie down’ with them for $16 a day. In one video posted to his business’s website, he is filmed shooting a handful of male tigers with tranquilizer darts after they ‘ganged up’ on a female in their enclosure. Before shooting them with the dart, he fired a pistol to scare them… The 55-year-old now faces 20 years imprisonment and a $500,000 fine if convicted of two counts of hiring a person to commit murder’. SOURCE…
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