Carole Baskin has sold 'Tiger King' Joe Exotic's zoo

Publish Date
Sunday, 29 August 2021, 10:47AM
Netflix

Netflix

Carole Baskin has sold Joe Exotic's zoo.

The animal rights campaigner ensured that the exotic animal park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma - which Baskin was awarded by a judge last year as part of a trademark lawsuit - will not be used as a zoo again, by including a special stipulation in the sale.

TMZ reports that Baskin sold the property in June to Francisco and Nelly Vazquez and, according to the paperwork, they are "expressly barred from using the land to house exotic animals of any kind - or as a zoo, wildlife park or menagerie - for 100 years".

Additionally, the new owners cannot use any name related to "Tiger King" for any new business on the property.

Netflix's Tiger King documentary featured the bitter rivalry between Big Cat Rescue's Baskin and private zoo owner Joe Exotic.

Last year, a federal judge in the western district court of Oklahoma ruled that Exotic previously fraudulently transferred the property to his mother Shirley Schreibvogel, to avoid paying Baskin a settlement in a trademark infringement lawsuit.

The zoo had been run by Joe's former business partner Jeff Lowe since 2016 but he was given 120 days to vacate the property, including removing all of his animals housed there, before Baskin seized control.

Exotic - whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage - is serving 22 years in prison for plotting to murder Carole.

However, a federal appeals court ruled last month that "Tiger King" should get a shorter prison sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws.

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver found that the trial court wrongly treated those two convictions separately in calculating his prison term under sentencing guidelines.

The panel agreed with Maldonado-Passage that the court should have treated them as one conviction at sentencing because they both involved the same goal of killing Baskin.

According to the ruling, the court should have calculated his advisory sentencing range to be between 17 1/2 years and just under 22 years in prison, rather than between just under 22 years and 27 years in prison. The court ordered the trial court to re-sentence Maldonado-Passage.

This article was first published on BANG! Showbiz and is republished here with permission

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