Joe Exotic

Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage (né Schreibvogel; born March 5, 1963), known professionally as Joe Exotic, is an American media personality and businessman who operated the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, from 1999 to 2018. Born in Kansas, Maldonado and his family moved to Texas, where he dropped out of Pilot Point High School. After graduation, he briefly served as the chief of police in Eastvale.

He then opened a pet store with his brother, but after his brother's death in 1997, he sold the store and founded the G. W. Zoo. During his tenure as director there, he also held magic shows and cub-petting events at venues across the U.S., hosted an online talk show, and worked with producer Rick Kirkham to create a reality television series about himself, but this latter effort ended when most footage was destroyed in a fire in 2015.

In 2016, Maldonado ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, earning attention as a novelty candidate due to his eccentric persona and unconventional campaign style. Maldonado left the G. W. Zoo in June 2018 and was arrested three months later on suspicion of hiring two men to murder Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin, with whom he had a complicated rivalry.

In 2019, Maldonado was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison on 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two counts of attempted murder for hire for the plot to kill Baskin. In 2021, he worked with attorney John Michael Phillips to file a motion for a new trial, and on July 15, 2021, a U.S.