‘Tiger King’ resentenced to 21 years in murder-for-hire plot

OKLAHOMA CITY (CN) — Convicted “Tiger King” star Joe Exotic was resentenced Friday morning to 21 years in federal prison for trying to kill rival tiger enthusiast and docuseries co-star Carole Baskin, only a slight reduction from his original sentence of 22 years.

U.S. District Judge Scott L. Palk lowered the sentence of Exotic aka Joseph Maldonado-Passage, 58, during a two-hour sentencing hearing in Oklahoma City federal court.

Maldonado-Passage was originally convicted by a federal jury in 2019 on two courts of murder-for-hire, eight counts of violating the Lacey Act for falsifying wildlife records and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act. Jurors found he tried to hire an undercover FBI agent to kill Baskin for $10,000.

Palk, a Donald Trump appointee, considered each murder-for-hire count separately when he originally sentenced Maldonado-Passage to 22 years in federal prison. The 10^th Circuit disagreed on appeal, remanding the case back to Palk for resentencing after concluding last July the similar charges should be grouped together concurrently.

U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Phillips, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote Baskin “was neither murdered multiple times nor assaulted multiple times” during Exotic’s scheme.

“Her harm was one sustained, ongoing harm,” the 22-page opinion stated. “She learned that Maldonado-Passage intended to have her killed and lived with that fear.”

The recalculation means Maldonado-Passage faced a new sentencing range of 20 to 22 years Friday.

The Denver-based appeals court ordered the remand in spite of voicing reluctance during oral arguments over how small the sentence adjustment would be.

“So two months is all we are talking about,” Phillips remarked during the January 2021 hearing.

Maldonado-Passage’s appellate attorney, Brandon Sample, disagreed and stated his hope the court would impose a range of 210 to 262 months instead of the trial judge’s range of 262 to 267 months.

“Hope springs eternal,” Phillips deadpanned, with the rest of the three-judge panel audibly laughing.

Calling himself the “Tiger King,” Maldonado-Passage gained a following on YouTube and local television with his flashy blond mullet and expletive-filled videos featuring wild animals. Along with Baskin, he became a star when Netflix released the “Tiger King” docuseries in 2020 that chronicled their years-long feud between his for-profit roadside zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and her tiger rescue sanctuary in Tampa, Florida.

Some of Maldonado-Passage’s highest-viewed YouTube videos feature him lip-synching to original country music songs about his animals and about Baskin, including one where he accuses her of killing her husband and feeding him to her tigers.

The murder-for-hire scheme was the result of Baskin’s $1 million trademark judgment against Maldonado-Passage over his use of her Big Cat Rescue name. Palk ultimately awarded Maldonado-Passage’s former 16.4-acre zoo property to Baskin in 2020 to partially satisfy that judgment. The judge ruled Maldonado-Passage had fraudulently transferred the land to his mother to shield it from Baskin.

Baskin reportedly sold the former zoo last June for $140,000 to two private buyers.

Maldonado-Passage and Baskin have remained in the headlines since the docuseries, with Netflix’s release of “Tiger King 2” and Peacock’s release of “Joe vs. Carole,” a limited series starring Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell as the title characters.

Maldonado-Passage has not remained idle behind bars, as he filed a $93 million federal civil lawsuit against the federal government soon after his conviction. He accused federal officials of being biased, homophobic and animal rights supporters in going after him.

He filed a separate lawsuit against the Justice Department in December 2020 after its refusal to directly present a pardon request to former President Trump during his final months in office. Trump had joked with reporters that he would “take a look” at pardoning Maldonaldo-Passage before the lawsuit was filed, but ultimately did not pardon him. Maldonado-Passage has since asked President Joe Biden for a pardon, calling his incarceration an “injustice.”

Maldonado-Passage is currently fighting prostate cancer behind bars. He was transferred to federal court Friday from Federal Medical Center Butner in North Carolina. His lawyers say he has delayed treatment in order to attend the hearing in person.

Baskin has remained active in civil court as well. She filed suit in Tampa federal court in November, demanding the producers of “Tiger King” not use footage she made in 2016 and 2018 for the show without a separate appearance release for “Tiger King 2.”

“Throughout the appearance releases, there is only reference to and mention of ‘the picture,’” the 21-page complaint stated. “No mention is made of granting Royal Goode Production sequel rights, rights to create derivative works from ‘the picture’ or additional seasons or episodes.”

This is a developing story…

from Courthouse News

Ex-EPA workers ask Virginia senators not to confirm Wheeler

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — More than 150 former Environmental Protection Agency employees urged the Virginia Senate on Friday to oppose the nomination of former EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler to GOP Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s cabinet.

Youngkin announced last week that he had selected Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who led the EPA during the latter years of the Trump administration, to serve as Virginia’s secretary of natural resources, a similar state-level role. The announcement sparked an immediate backlash from the state’s conservation community, and many Democratic state senators have publicly announced their opposition.

Ex-EPA officials who worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations detailed their concerns to the Democrat-led chamber in the sharply worded letter, which was first shared with The Associated Press.

“As EPA Administrator, Mr. Wheeler pursued an extremist approach, methodically weakening EPA’s ability to protect public health and the environment, instead favoring polluters. Mr. Wheeler also sidelined science at the agency, ignored both agency and outside experts, rolled back rules to cut greenhouse gases and protect the climate, and took steps to hamstring EPA and slow efforts to set the agency back on course after he left office,” they wrote.

Youngkin’s staff didn’t immediately respond to a request from the AP for comment from Wheeler or the governor-elect.

The 158 signatories on the letter include two deputy EPA administrators and two former administrators of EPA’s mid-Atlantic region, of which Virginia is a part. One of the former regional administrators was appointed during Republican President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Three former directors of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board signed on, as did assistant administrators, attorneys, scientists and other rank-and-file staff.

Wheeler worked at the EPA’s Pollution Prevention and Toxics office early in his career. He then worked from 1995 to 2009 as a staffer for Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, a fervent denier of man-made climate change, and for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, before becoming a lobbyist.

His client list included Murray Energy, one of the nation’s largest coal mining companies.

He took over the EPA job after President Donald Trump accepted the resignation of embattled administrator Scott Pruitt, who had been dogged by scandals that spawned federal and congressional investigations.

The EPA under Trump generally moved to delegate a range of public health and environmental enforcement to states and roll back protections put into place under President Barack Obama.

While Wheeler was in the top job, the Trump administration ordered  a sweeping about-face on Obama-era efforts to fight climate change, moving to ease restrictions on coal-fired power plants. EPA also moved to revoke California’s authority to set auto mileage standards and dropped an Obama-era regulation opposed by developers and farmers that shielded many U.S. wetlands and streams from pollution.

“Through our deregulatory actions, the Trump administration has proven that burdensome federal regulations are not necessary to drive environmental progress,” Wheeler told lawmakers in 2019.

The former EPA employees warned that Wheeler would “significantly undermine the progress that Virginia’s legislature has recently made to advance clean energy and address climate change.”

They also noted that Christine Todd Whitman, a former EPA administrator and Republican governor of New Jersey writing in a Washington Post opinion piece, warned Congress in 2019 not to confirm Wheeler to the EPA post.

In Virginia, cabinet secretaries are subject to confirmation by the state House, now controlled by the GOP, and Senate. The process is usually fairly perfunctory, with the approval of the governor’s choices seen as a courtesy absent major controversies. If Senate Democrats remain unified, their 21-19 majority could end Wheeler’s nomination, even without support from their Republican colleagues.

Christopher Zarba, a former director of EPA’s Science Advisory Board staff office, is among those urging senators to vote against Wheeler. He told the AP that he was used to accommodating the approaches of political appointees during his 38 years at EPA as a scientist and manager, but he said “atrocities on science” were committed under Pruitt and Wheeler.

“There was broad recognition that the previous administration, and Andrew Wheeler being part of that, there was broad catering to special interests at the cost of quality science and public health,” Zarba said.

Penelope Fenner-Crisp, a former deputy director in the Office of Pesticide Programs and a longtime Virginia resident, was the driving force behind the letter. She said more than 150 people signed on within two days after she used a mailing list of EPA alumni to circulate it, focusing on people who live in Virginia or the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

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By SARAH RANKIN Associated Press

from Courthouse News