Joe Exotic wants to be Kim Kardashian’s next project in her fight for prison reform. The Tiger King subject is currently serving a 22-year sentence after being convicted on 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two counts of murder for hire in 2019. However, he maintains his innocence, and wants a presidential pardon before Donald Trump’s term is up in Jan. 2021. So, he wrote Kim a letter in the hopes that she would vouch for him with the president.
“I am writing you this letter, not as Joe Exotic, but as the person Joseph Maldonado-Passage, asking you to please help me by just taking 10 min. out of your life and placing a call to President Trump to look at my 257 page pardon, with all the evidence I’m innocent, and ask him to sign my pardon,” he wrote in the letter, which was published by Entertainment Tonight. “I have lost 57 years of work, my zoo, my animals, my mother has died, my dad is dying, and I’ve been taken away from my husband, who I love dearly.”
Joe concluded the letter by asking Kim to place a call to Trump, and assuring her, “No one even has to know you did it.” Kim has met with Trump regarding prison reform in the past, and has already helped various people get clemency. it is unclear whether she put in a word for Joe Exotic, though (his letter was dated Nov. 4).
The reality star was definitely a fan of Tiger King, the Netflix documentary about Joe and his zoo. She tweeted about the doc when it first came out earlier this year. Then, she dressed up as Carole Baskin for Halloween, while her pal, Jonathan Cheban, dressed as Joe. The costume was complete with Kim’s four kids — North, 7, Saint 5, Chicago, 2, and Psalm, 1 — who all went as tigers.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that Joe has mentioned wanting a pardon from Trump. The president actually addressed the possibility during a press briefing in April. He said that he had knew “nothing about” Joe’s case, but vowed to “take a look.” However, Donald Trump Jr. did watch the docu-series, and admitted that he felt Joe’s sentence was pretty harsh. “I don’t even know exactly what he was charged with,” Don Jr. said in April. “It doesn’t seem like he was totally innocent of anything, but when they’re saying, ‘We’re putting this guy away for 30 years,’ I’m saying…that seems sort of aggressive.”