Joe Exotic has expressed his outrage that President Trump has pardoned reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley while he remains incarcerated.
62-year-old Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Allen Maldonado, shot to fame in the 2020 Netflix documentary series Tiger King, which focused on his rivalry with wildlife activist Carole Baskin.
In 2019, he was found guilty on two counts of hiring a hitman to murder Baskin. Prosecutors said Maldonado-Passage offered $10,000 to an undercover FBI agent to kill Baskin during a recorded December 2017 meeting.
He is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence. In 2021, he announced that he is suffering from “aggressive” late-stage prostate cancer.
It emerged yesterday that President Trump has pardoned Chrisley Knows Best stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud in 2022.
In response to the news, Exotic wrote on X: “I guess being innocent is not enough in America. They all admitted to perjury on world television but yet I'm left to die of cancer before I can get any help.”
Exotic added: “Why is it the entire world can see the evidence but the White House refuses to acknowledge that they did this to me knowing that they were lying.”
Todd Chrisley and his wife, Julie, were found guilty of conspiring to defraud community banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans in 2022. Prosecutors said the couple walked away from their responsibility for repayment when Todd Chrisley declared bankruptcy.
They were also both found guilty of tax evasion and conspiring to defraud the IRS, while Julie was convicted of wire fraud and obstruction of justice.
Julie Chrisley was sentenced to seven years in federal prison, and Todd Chrisley got 12 years behind bars. The couple was also ordered to pay $17.8 million in restitution. The couple have been appealing their case since being sentenced in November 2022.
Yesterday, President Trump called their children to tell them: “It's a terrible thing but it's a great thing, because your parents are going to be free and clean. I hope we can do it by tomorrow.”
Todd has been serving his sentence at a minimum security federal prison camp and previously had a release date of June 2032, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Julie is at a facility in Lexington, Kentucky, and was not set to be released until April 2028.
The couple are known to be longtime Trump supporters.
In February, Todd Chrisley’s attorney claimed that guards at FPC Pensacola removed a MAGA (Make America Great Again) sticker from his cell. At the time, Chrisley’s lawyer Jay Surgent said he was hopeful Trump would soon grant him a pardon.
“It will be up to President Trump to review their cases,” Surgent told TMZ at the time. “Todd has faith he will be given due consideration because he feels that he never received constitutional protections in a fair criminal justice system.”
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