If you’re not already watching Netflix’s Tiger King docuseries, you absolutely should be, and now we have an addendum of sorts to the strange saga of big cat breeder-turned-felon Joe Exotic: Exotic — real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage — has reportedly filed a $94 million lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Federal Wildlife Service claiming discrimination.
Maldonado-Passage, 57, is currently in the Grady County Jail in Oklahoma serving a 22-year prison sentence for his murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue as well as wildlife law charges related to his killing five tigers and illegally breeding others. His lawsuit claims that by placing the “generic tiger” on the endangered species list, the feds were intentionally trying to put him out of business.
He claims in the suit that he was unfairly targeted and “discriminated against because he is the only person charged with this statute because [he] is an openly gay male with the largest collection of generic tigers and crossbreeds.” He’s seeking $78,840,000 in damages for the loss of his personal property and 18 years’ worth of his work with tigers, as well as $15 million for false arrest, imprisonment, and malicious prosecution related to the murder-for-hire case, claiming his former business partner Jeff Lowe set him up by planting evidence and lying to investigators.
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