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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Harry Rutter

Carole Baskin says Joe Exotic received 'fair punishment' for Tiger King murder plot

Carole Baskin feels as if Joe Exotic received 'fair punishment' after being sentenced to 20 years behind bars after conspiring to murder her.

The truly terrifying murder-for-hire plot was played out in the iconic hit-Netflix Tiger King series and now Carole has spoken out about Joe's sentencing.

Joe Exotic – full name Joseph Maldonado-Passage – was sentenced to 21 years in jail for trying to hire two men to kill Carole.

The pair had been at odds over Carole's constant critique of Joe's wild animal park and his out-of-the-ordinary cat-keeping practises.

Joe was found guilty on two counts of hiring someone to murder Carole in Florida back in January 2020.

Carole says Joe got 'fair punishment' for his murder plot (SplashNews.com)

He was also found guilty on eight counts of violating the Lacey Act by falsifying wildlife records, and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act by killing five tigers and selling tigers across state lines.

He was originally sentenced to between 22 and 27 years in jail, but was re-sentenced in July 2021 to a sentence between 17.5 and 22 years.

Carole said: "I do think that the punishment fits the crime because he’s someone who caused hundreds upon hundreds of tigers and lions and ligers to be bred into a life of deprivation, captivity, and pacing back and forth in tiny jail cells the same size as the one that he’s in now."

She told HollywoodLife: "It baffles me that people will rally behind the person who killed five tigers in order to make space to board other tigers that were more valuable to them.

Joe Exotic was sentenced to over 20 years in jail (Netflix US/AFP via Getty Images)

"Somebody that took out a hit with two different people to kill me. What kind of person backs that kind of mindset to put them back out there in the wild?"

She went on to call Joe a "tiger cub pimp" before claiming that she'd received "multiple death threats" over the years.

It comes after she previously claimed she was trying to have footage of herself removed from Tiger King 2 on the eve of its release and says she was 'duped' into appearing on the series in the first place.

She filed a lawsuit earlier in 2021 to stop Netflix using her image and likeness in the upcoming series – something the streaming giant rebuffed.

Carole slammed people wanting to free Joe (Getty Images for NightFly Entertainment, Ltd.)

Carole insists she's not trying to stop the show going ahead as she knows there is an audience after to watch the "freak show" series.

However she is adamant she only signed up for one run – and even that wasn't correctly pitched to her.

Speaking to TMZ, Carole said producers pitched the original to her like it was going to be a 'Blackfish'-style exposé on animal abuse and claims they showed her an early promo which looked just like that.

She added: "The release specifically said a motion picture, a film. And it did not include sequels or any language even remotely indicating that they could do sequels.

"They told us that Joe was just going to be a tiny part of this and we were shocked to hear that it ended up being called Tiger King and it was all about this made-up feud."

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