Tiger King’s Joe Exotic, who is incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, was recently placed in quarantine after being infected with a contagious skin condition called scabies, his legal team says.
The former zookeeper, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, rose to fame in 2020 through the Netflix true crime show Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. He is serving a 21-year sentence for scheming to hire someone to kill big-cat sanctuary owner Carole Baskin and violating federal wildlife laws.
In an email Tuesday, a representative for the Fort Worth prison confirmed an outbreak of scabies in one housing unit. Visitation to the unit had been temporarily suspended.
The prison declined to comment on confinement conditions for anyone in its custody and noted that precautions were being taken to reduce the risk of exposure.
Maldonado-Passage had been experiencing symptoms including a rash and itching for over a month and a half, said Roger Roots, one of his lawyers. Maldonado-Passage told them last week that the prison did not have enough medication to treat inmates with the skin condition, though he has since been treated and given new clothing and bedding, his legal team said.
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The prison did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon on Maldonado-Passage’s claims of delayed medical attention.
It said in its earlier email that it takes “communicable infections seriously.”
“Infections are managed through a comprehensive approach that includes testing, treatment, prevention, education and infection control measures.”
Maldonado-Passage’s legal team said he had observed “very unsanitary” conditions in the prison, including rats in beds. The prison representative said there was no vermin infestation.
“We make every effort to ensure the physical safety and health of the individuals confined to our facilities through a controlled environment that is secure and humane,” the spokesperson said.
The series delves into big-cat breeding and the feud between Baskin and Maldonado-Passage.
Tiger King dove into the world of big-cat breeding and the bitter feud between Maldonado-Passage and Baskin, who accused him of mistreating his animals.
The two were embroiled in a yearslong legal battle. In 2011, Baskin sued Maldonado-Passage for trademark infringement, accusing him of using her company’s logo to promote his Oklahoma animal park. A judge ordered Maldonado-Passage to pay her about $1 million in 2013. Weeks later, he filed for bankruptcy protection.
Baskin filed another lawsuit in 2016, saying Maldonado-Passage had “fraudulently transferred” his Oklahoma property to his mother to place it out of reach of his creditors. In 2020, she was awarded ownership of the former zoo, which she sold a year later.
Maldonado-Passage repeatedly tried to hire someone to murder Baskin, including an undercover FBI agent in 2017, according to federal officials. He was arrested and indicted on murder-for-hire charges in 2018.
Maldonado-Passage also violated the Endangered Species Act when he killed five tigers in 2017 to make room for other big cats, according to a 2020 news release from the US Department of Justice that announced his sentencing.
Before the self-proclaimed “gay, gun-toting cowboy” became a national figure, Maldonado-Passage was known as Joe Schreibvogel and owned a pet store in Arlington.
He's been appealing his convictions for quite a while.
In 1999, Schreibvogel drew controversy after he offered to bring a flock of emaciated emus from Red Oak to an Oklahoma sanctuary established by his parents (later the zoo shown in Tiger King).
There was some difficulty in rounding up the large birds, the Dallas Morning News reported, and Schreibvogel ended up shooting and killing several of them, saying it was more humane than the ordeal of being captured. He later sold his Arlington, Texas, store after the negative publicity from the incident hurt his business, he said.
Maldonado-Passage has been appealing his convictions for years. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2021 that his original prison sentence of 22 years was too long. In 2022, a federal judge resentenced him to 21 years.
“He is wrongly imprisoned for crimes he did not commit,” Roots said. “He’s been in there over six years.”
–Uwa Ede-Osifo, The Dallas Morning News (TNS)
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