Tiger King star Joe Exotic begs Donald Trump for pardon from 21-year prison sentence

Tiger King star Joe Exotic has made a plea to President Donald Trump to pardon him for his role in a murder-for-hire plot against his rival Carole Baskin. Photo / Netflix

Joe Exotic believes he is more deserving of a pardon than the newly-freed rioters.

The Tiger King star - who is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence after being found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot against rival Carole Baskin - has been campaigning for early release and thinks it is hugely unfair he is still behind bars when one of President Donald Trump’s first actions when returning to office last week was to set free those who were involved in violent protests at the Capitol after he lost the 2020 election.

He told Entertainment Weekly: “I plead to President Trump. I’m not begging, but I’m asking that he take five minutes and look at the evidence.

“Being in prison with the evidence that I have is wrong, especially when they’re releasing people that have murdered people.

“I don’t hold anything against the January 6 people, but some of them people really hurt some police officers and they’re free because they were hostages. Hell, I’m a hostage, I’m a political prisoner in America, and I’m asking President Donald J. Trump to put an end to this and let me go home.”

The 61-year-old zoo keeper - who was jailed in 2020 on 17 counts of wildlife crimes and two counts of attempted murder-for-hire but has insisted he is innocent - believes it is hypocritical that “we have so many people — especially me, but I’m no better than anybody else that’s in prison — innocent, that haven’t got a fair shake” when both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have pardoned a number of individuals who he believes have been involved in far worse crimes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joseph A Maldonado (@joe_exotic)

He added: “They trip all over themselves, releasing people like Viktor Bout, $6 billion doing all these foreign trades, and nothing against Brittney Griner, but she got on an airplane with illegal drugs and knowingly not only flew across state lines, but she flew across international lines. Then she pled guilty and got sentenced in Russia and America bends over backwards and calls it wrongfully detained.

“Good for the January Sixers, good for the protesters for pro-life, everybody that got the pardons and everything else.

“But seven years of my life for nothing. My parents have died. I lost my business, which is supposed to be the American dream, to work and own your own business. I think I’m due.”

Exotic insisted he doesn’t even mind if his conviction is upheld and his sentence is cut to time served, he just wants to get out of jail.

He said: “I could take just time served if somebody thinks I’ve done something wrong and I can move on with my life being a felon, because he’s the President as a felon.

“And if you can become the president of the United States as a felon, Hey, I can finish off my life ... I can finish that happily as a felon.

“Just give me time served. I don’t need a damn pardon. Just commute my sentence to time served, not because of who I am, but because it’s the right thing to do.”