TIGER KING’S TRUMP PLEA
He asks President for pardon
BIG CAT KILLER: Joe Exotic with tiger
TIGER killer Joe Exotic wants Brits to “rally” the US president to help him get a pardon for his murder plot conviction.
Exotic, 57, subject of the Tiger King Netflix documentary, is serving 22 years in prison for attempting to have his big cat rival Carole Baskin snuffed out.
He tried to hire a hitman to murder her after she exposed him for keeping his tigers in squalid conditions.
The Sunday People told in March how Exotic shot six of the magnificent animals dead to make way for new ones.
Now he is claiming he has the support of Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr – who joked earlier this year he could lobby for the animal abuser’s release.
Exotic also blasts TV producers, claiming they used his conviction to get rich.
And he begs to be freed so he can bring his husband Dillon Passage, 24, to meet UK fans.
In letters, written in his prison cell and passed to the Sunday
People, Exotic wrote: “Thank you for the love and support. I think the producers knew this was a set up and they all used me to get rich. Sad. So please know I send my love and tell the UK I love you all.
“Dillon wants me to take him and visit you all so please ask everyone there to rally on Trump’s Twitter and Facebook to listen to his own son Don Jr and pardon me for Dillons birthday...be my hero. Love you, Joe Exotic.”
His legal team reportedly flew to
Washington DC this week to hand deliver to t he White
House a request for a pardon.
Mr Trump was asked in
April if he had considered pardoning Exotic. The
President said he would “take a look” but added he had not seen the documentary.
In flyers sent from Exotic’s cell, Eric Love, lead investigator for his legal team, writes: “Joe is a victim of a flawed and corrupt legal system. He has been stifled and had his voice taken away. Even worse,
Joe was betrayed and framed by the ones he trusted most.
“As the campaign for the Presidential pardon begins, Joe needs you more than ever.
“Team Tiger asks that you send a letter to the President showing your support.”
Exotic is in a US federal prison after being convicted of murder for hire and animal abuse.
His story was told in the Netflix smash Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. A juror in the hitman case criticised the show for making Exotic seem “lovable”, adding: “It just wasn’t even the same story.
“It did a huge injustice to the jury because now people think that we convicted him based on absolutely nothing.” Exotic’s zoo, the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, closed last year after a judge ruled it could be taken over by victim Carole, 57.
She is now set to appear in the next series of Dancing With The Stars, the US version of Strictly.
COUPLE: Joe & Dillon