FORT WORTH — Joe Exotic, who rose to fame in the Netflix series “Tiger King” and is currently serving time in federal prison, says he is engaged to a fellow Texan and hopes to get married.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, is currently incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth. He announced in a press release on Wednesday that he had submitted a marriage application to the federal prison to marry his colleague, Jorge Márquez Flores.
Maldonado Convicted In 2019, 21 charges were laid, including 19 counts of wildlife crimes and two counts of hiring hitmen to kill an animal activist. Carole Baskin. He is serving a 21-year prison sentence.
His fiancé, 33-year-old Jorge Marquez Flores, originally from Mexico, is serving prison time for immigration issues, according to Maldonado’s press release.
According to Maldonado, the two men are optimistic that the prison will grant their request and have “high hopes” that Maldonado’s appeal will be successful. He hopes that they will be released from prison in mid-2025.
In his press release, Maldonado also requested a presidential pardon for him and Flores, as well as asylum for Flores.
“I hope that someone who takes over or wins the presidency will do the right thing and excuse me so that I can move on from this nightmare that my country has caused me for the last seven years of my life,” Maldonado wrote in the press release. “All I did was build a zoo and some people were very jealous. Then I was put in prison by my country.”