New Netflix true crime is about a tiger killer who plotted to murder activist

Netflix is releasing a new true crime documentary about a zookeeper who was jailed for killing tigers, as well as plotting to kill an activist. The series, ‘Tiger King’, is being released on Netflix next month.

The series comes from the producers of the Fyre Festival documentary and is all about the crimes of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as Joe Exotic.

via Netflix

What is Tiger King on Netflix about?

The docuseries is based on Joe Exotic, or Joseph Maldonado-Passage, who was a tiger breeder who ran a roadside zoo in Oklahoma.

56-year-old Joseph Maldonado-Passage was convicted in 2019 over a plot to kill his long-time critic Carole Baskin. She is the founder of the Big Cat Rescue Wildlife Sanctuary and had criticised Joe’s zoo’s treatment of animals. He was convicted last April on two counts of murder-for-hire, eight counts of violating the Lacey Act for falsifying wildlife records and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act. He was found guilty of killing five tiger cubs, and for selling and offering to sell tiger cubs in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

According to prosecutors, he had paid a man $3,000 to go and kill Carole Baskin in November 2017. It was also alleged he said he would pay the man more money once she was dead. The next month he met with a different man, with whom he also requested they killed Carole Baskin. What he didn’t know was that this man was working undercover for the FBI. Joe Exotic was sentenced to 22 years in prison just last month.

via Netflix

Netflix announced the documentary, tweeting saying: “From the executive producer of FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened comes #TigerKing, a new docuseries about Joe Exotic — a gun-toting polygamist who presides over an Oklahoma animal park — and the murder-for-hire plot that led to his arrest.”

The Netflix synopsis for the new docuseries reads: “A rivalry between big cat eccentrics takes a dark turn when Joe Exotic, a controversial animal park boss, is caught in a murder-for-hire plot in this limited docuseries where the only thing more dangerous than a big cat is its owner.”

Joe also unsuccessfully ran for Oklahoma governor and president of the United States in 2018 and 2016, respectively. He featured heavily in Louis Theroux’s 2011 documentary, America’s Most Dangerous Pets and has a (now inactive) YouTube channel with videos of his work.

Tiger King will be available on Netflix on March 20th. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

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