Local lawyer secures appellate court reversal for Joe Exotic
On July 14, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit released an opinion that vacated Joe Maldonado-Passage’s sentence and remanded his case for resentencing for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws. Maldonado-Passage is better known as Joe Exotic, the zookeeper who was featured in the popular Netflix documentary “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.”
While this does not guarantee that Exotic will get a new trial, it was a necessary first step, according to John M. Phillips, whose Phillips & Hunt law offices in downtown Jacksonville represents Exotic. Phillips is the lead attorney for Exotic’s criminal and litigation team.
“Now that the appellate court has ruled, we will be filing motions on Joe’s behalf that will reveal both undisclosed and newly discovered evidence as well as numerous examples of government misconduct,” Phillips said.
“Tiger King” Joe Exotic was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison after being convicted in district court of trying to hire two different men to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin.
In its opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals acknowledged that Exotic’s sentence should be reduced because the district court mistakenly thought that the two murder-for-hire convictions should not be grouped. Legally speaking, Carole Baskin did not experience multiple harms.
The ruling acknowledges that the court should have treated them as one conviction at sentencing because they both involved the same goal of killing Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida. Accordingly, the court should have sentenced Exotic to somewhere between 17 1/2 years and just under 22 years in prison, rather than between just under 22 years and 27 years in prison. The court has ordered the trial court to re-sentence Exotic.
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