It’s been an absolutely nightmarish past week, and it feels like eons ago when we were all sitting around trading memes and shocked tweets about Tiger King, the Netflix true crime documentary about a group of big cat collectors and those who ran zoos and sanctuaries.
And yes, there are many, many, MANY more important things going on right now.
There is, however, a strange twist to the end of the series to report: Carole Baskin, the sanctuary owner of Big Cat Rescue in Florida, has been handed the zoo that belonged to Joe Exotic (whose real name is Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage), who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for violations of the Endangered Species Act, falsifying wildlife records and for murder-for-hire for attempting to pay someone to kill Baskin.
Courthouse News reports a federal judge gave Baskin control of Exotic’s zoo — which is now run by Jeff Lowe — because he found that the property had been fraudulently transferred in order for Exotic to avoid paying Baskin $1 million he owed Baskin in a trademark suit.
It’s quite a bizarre twist given how much the documentary focused on Exotic’s hatred and frequent public attacks of Baskin.
The only word we’ve heard from Exotic on the matter are these tweets from a Twitter account claiming it’s his, which isn’t verified:
