Tiger King star Joe Exotic has been jailed for 21 years after being resentenced for his part in a murder-for-hire plot.
Former Oklahoma zookeeper Exotic — whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage — was resentenced after a federal appeal court ruled that he should get a shorter prison sentence.
He was originally sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill Florida animal rights activist Carole Baskin.
READ MORE:
In July, a three-judge panel of the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver found that the trial court wrongly caluclated his prison term under sentencing guidelines.
The appeals court panel said his advisory sentencing range should be between 17-and-a-half years and just under 22 years rather than between just under 22 years and 27 years in prison, as the trial court had calculated.
Ms Baskin, who attended the resentencing hearing, appeared alongside him in hit Netflix series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem And Madness.
Prosecutors say Exotic tried to hire two people — including an undercover FBI agent — to kill the activist, who had criticised his treatment of animals.
Exotic’s lawyers said he wasn’t being serious.
In November last year, Exotic was reportedly transferred to a medical facility for federal inmates after a cancer diagnosis.
His lawyer said he was flown by plane to be transferred from a federal medical centre in the US state of Texas, to a federal medical centre in North Carolina.
Defence lawyer John Phillips said Exotic had told him that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was getting medical treatment and tests “for a host of issues”.
