An Oklahoma judge has ordered resentencing for Tiger King star Joe Exotic.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit handed down the order Wednesday in the case of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, the man known as “Joe Exotic” from the popular Netflix series Tiger King, ABC News affiliate KOCO in Oklahoma City reports. However, his conviction was affirmed.
In 2019, Maldonado-Passage was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison for violating wildlife laws in addition to the failed murder-for-hire plots against his nemesis, Carole Baskin. At the time, he asked that the judge combine the sentence for the two murder-for-hire counts, but was instead given an individual sentence for each.
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Maldonado-Passage’s conviction but vacate the sentence and remand for resentencing,” the court documents state.
To sum it up, “Joe Exotic is not going free,” KOCO reporter Dillon Richards shared on Twitter.
“He was originally sentenced to 264 months (the lower end of the 262-327 month range) Now the judge will have to re-sentence, but this time his range will be 210-262 months instead,” Richards explained. “So essentially the likely effect is that this could knock a couple years off his 22-year sentence.”
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.