Judge sets Jan. 28 for ‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic resentencing

OKLAHOMA Town – A federal judge in Oklahoma on Monday set a Jan. 28 day for the resentencing of “Tiger King” Joe Unique.

U.S. District Decide Scott Palk set the resentencing for 10 a.m. and granted the defendant’s ask for to be transported to Oklahoma Metropolis for the hearing.

A federal appeals court in July dominated that Joe Unique, whose real identify is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, should really get a shorter sentence. The U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver determined the demo courtroom wrongly addressed two murder-for-seek the services of convictions individually in calculating his prison phrase.

Maldonado-Passage was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 a long time in prison. But the appeals court docket mentioned the court docket ought to have calculated his advisory sentencing assortment amongst 17 1/2 a long time and just underneath 22 a long time in jail, alternatively than in between just beneath 22 years and 27 years in prison.

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Maldonado-Passage, who maintains his innocence, also was sentenced for killing five tigers, marketing tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife documents.

Past month, attorneys for the previous Oklahoma zookeeper mentioned he was delaying cancer procedure right up until soon after his resentencing. Maldonado-Passage introduced in November that he has prostate most cancers, and he was transferred from a federal health-related heart in Fort Really worth, Texas, to a federal professional medical centre in Butner, North Carolina.

In a different action, a few who succeeded Maldonado-Passage in running the Bigger Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park and Tiger King Park agreed to surrender their rights to 97 animals of endangered or threatened species and 47 other animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act.

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Jeffrey and Lauren Lowe, who are previous close friends of Maldonado-Passage, also agreed in a Dec. 23 consent decree filed in federal court docket in Muskogee, Oklahoma, to hardly ever all over again show animals.

Federal agents seized the 97 endangered animals, including 68 huge cats and a jaguar, from Tiger King Park in Thackerville, Oklahoma, in two seizures previous Could and August. Federal officials accused the Lowes of harming and harassing the animals.