Joe Exotic to stay in jail
Over the summer, the former Oklahoma zookeeper known as Joe Exotic sold most of his guns — except for his AR-15 assault-style rifle.
That one, he reportedly explained, “is for Carole.”
A judge on Thursday heard testimony about the exotic big cat breeder’s threats against Carole Baskin, the operator of a Florida animal sanctuary.
The judge also saw his videos and Facebook posts about someday killing her.
In the end, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernard Jones ruled he will stay locked up until his trial in a murder-for-hire case.
A federal grand jury in Oklahoma City on Sept. 5 indicted the defendant, whose full name is Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage.
He was arrested two days later in Gulf Breeze, Florida. He is 55.
The founder of a private petting zoo in Wynnewood is accused in the indictment of twice trying to have Baskin killed. He claims he was framed by the zoo’s new owner, Jeff Lowe.
Maldonado-Passage admits to making the threats on social media against Baskin who successfully sued him years ago. His attorney suggested they were scripted remarks to attract online viewers and possibly visitors to the zoo.
“He’s a showman,” the assistant federal public defender, Bill Earley, said. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”
The judge said he disagreed the videos were “just skits.” According to the indictment, the judge said, “the words were on the verge of becoming reality.”
In a 2012 online video played at the detention hearing, Joe Exotic said about Baskin, “I am the most dangerous exotic animal owner on this
planet right now and before you bring me down it is my belief that you will stop breathing.”
In a 2014 video, he shot an effigy of Baskin in the head. Using a curse word, he said, “That is how sick and tired of this ... I am.”
In a 2015 comment on his YouTube page, he wrote he was “going to Florida to commit suicide in eight days.” In a subsequent comment, he wrote “a murder suicide.”
The judge specifically ruled there were no conditions that would reasonably assure the safety of the community if the defendant was released.
The judge said he was most concerned about the defendant’s mental state. In recorded phone calls played for the judge, Maldonado-Passage
talked of suicide because of his arrest.
“If I don’t get bond, I’m going to go live with Travis,” he told one friend.
Travis Maldonado, 23, was his husband, who died a year ago after accidentally shooting himself in the head at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park.
The defendant married his current husband, Dillon Jacob Passage, two months later.
During the detention hearing Thursday, a friend offered to let Maldonado-Passage live with her while awaiting trial. Lisa Sparks said she met him last year during his unsuccessful Libertarian campaign for governor.
His defense attorney told the judge that it would be unfair to keep him locked up until trial given the real possibility of an acquittal.
A prosecutor countered that the case is not a “he said, she said” deal.
“There are recordings of Mr. Maldonado talking about murdering Miss Baskin,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Green said. “That’s powerful evidence.”
Grand jurors alleged he paid one individual $3,000 in November to murder Baskin and promised to pay thousands of dollars more after it was done.
Grand jurors alleged he met in December with another individual and an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man to discuss murdering Baskin.
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent testified Thursday he learned of the potential murder-for-hire plot while conducting an illegal wildlife sales investigation.
Special Agent Matt Bryant said Maldonado Passage moved out of his home at the zoo in June after a clash with the new owner and lived for a while in Yukon. The defendant faked Instagram posts to make it appear he was in Mexico or Belize, the agent said.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
He and Baskin have been in a dispute for more than a decade over his treatment of exotic animals. She has condemned him for allowing tiger cubs to be petted for profit.
Baskin is CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a nonprofit based in Tampa. In 2013, Big Cat Rescue won court judgments of more than $1 million against Joe Exotic for copyright and trademark infringements. Baskin has been trying to collect the judgments ever since, resulting in further litigation against him, his mother and Lowe.
The trial is now set for November in Oklahoma City federal court but a delay is expected.