Tiger King star Joe Exotic announces engagement to fellow inmate from federal prison

Joe Exotic announced he’s engaged to be married despite being in the midst of a 21-year federal prison sentence.

‘Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico,’ Exotic, 61, wrote in his post on X (formerly Twitter) this week while being incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth.

‘Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we be leaving America when we both get out,’ the Garden City, Kansas native added. ‘Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.’

The Tiger King maintains he submitted a marriage application to the federal prison to wed Marquez, according to the man also known Joseph Maldonado-Passage.

His fiancé is serving time for immigration-related issues, according to a report from CBS News. 

Both men are not only optimistic the prison will approve their wedding application, they also still have ‘high hopes’ that Exotic’s appeal of his entire case, including his conviction for hiring hitmen to kill animal activist Carole Baskin, will succeed. 

He claims to have evidence such as ‘video confessions under oath’ and ‘700 phone recordings of federal agents.’

In his news release, Exotic has requested a presidential pardon for himself and his fiancé, as well as asylum for Marquez.

‘I wish someone that is President or wins the Presidency would do the right thing and pardon me so I could move past this nightmare that my own country has caused for the last 7 years of my life,’ Maldonado shared. ‘All I did was build a zoo and some people were very jealous. Then I was put into prison by my own country.’ 

In a phone interview with Entertainment Tonight Maldonado-Passage disclosed the details about where the process currently stands right now.

‘We filed our official papers for the marriage license from the prison yesterday, so we’re just waiting for an approval,’ Exotic explained. ‘He has picked out December 12 as the date we’re hoping to get this approved by.’ 

He claims their marriage application ‘has to be approved by the warden and psychiatry and the chaplain’ before their license can be approved.  

‘We love each other very much, spend every minute of the day together,’ the star of Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness revealed. 

The so-called Tiger King says his fiancé, a Mexico native, is hoping for asylum after prison or ‘we be leaving America when we both get out’

Exotic, who’s also known as Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was 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 Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin, but a U.S. appeals court reduced the sentence to 21 years in 2019

He added, ‘I’ve been through some s**t in my days. I buried two husbands, the third one ran off with $2.6 million bucks from Netflix and left my a** here, but Jorge is a very amazing young man.’

Exotic was previously married to the late Travis Maldonado, who passed away after accidentally shooting himself in 2017.

Maldonado was a 19-year-old from California with a history of drug addiction, which was detailed in the Netflix show.

He arrived at Exotic’s zoo in 2013 on the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance, the series explains.

It was hoped that by working with animals, Maldonado would be able to manage his addiction and Exotic put him to work on his animal park – but the pair soon became romantically-linked.

Not long after his arrival, Exotic married Maldonado, who was 32 years his junior, and John Finlay in a three-way ceremony. 

Joe was also engaged to Dillon Passage, whom he hooked up with two months after Travis’ death. 

Their relationship ended when they decided to part ways in 2020 and then file for divorce the following year. 

Joe announced in December 2022: ‘Just waiting on the final order from the judge!’

Texan bartender Dillon, 29, – who’s been dating fitness trainer John Devarti since July 2021 – took to Instastory to reveal it took ‘four drafts’ for Joe (born Joseph Allen Schreibvogel) to finally sign off.

‘It’s been a battle and tens of thousands of dollars spent over the past year and a half trying to be released from my own kind of prison,’ Dillon wrote.

The Kansas native has been pushing for his conviction to be overturned, and has been push for a presidential pardon from whoever will be president come January 20, 2025

‘But it was all so worth it! Excited to move forward with my life and with my amazing partner John @devarti_j who supports me in all things! Next step: engineering school!’

Passage can no longer ‘distribute, profit from, sell, transfer or use’ any of the likenesses of Maldonado and there is a non-disparagement agreement in place – according to TMZ.

Dillon and Joe tied the knot in December of 2017, just two months after Travis died at 23-years-old of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Joe was in a polyamorous relationship with Travis and John Finlay, 36, at the time they had an unofficial three-partner wedding in 2015, before he and Finlay had a falling out.

He was arrested in September of 2018.

In 2019, Exotic 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 Big Cat Rescue founder Carole Baskin. 

Two years later, after filing a motion for a new trial, a U.S appeals court ruled that the  convictions for the two murder attempts were wrongly treated as separate, and as a result reduced his sentence by one year, and ultimately resentencing him to 21 years in prison in late January 2022.

Exotic was previously married to the late Travis Maldonado, who passed away after accidentally shooting himself in 2017. He was also engaged to Dillon Passage (seen together), whom he hooked up with two months later 

Joe was in a polyamorous relationship with Travis (seen) and John Finlay, 36, at the time they had an unofficial three-partner wedding in 2015, before he and Finlay had a falling out

Maldonado was a 19-year-old from California with a history of drug addiction, which was detailed in the Netflix show

Exotic has been subject to substantial criticism, especially for the controversies surrounding his feud with Baskin and the treatment of animals at the G.W. Zoo.

He has been featured in several documentaries, including the hit Netflix series Tiger King (2020-2021), which showcased his career as a zookeeper and his feud with Baskin, and two from Louis Theroux titled America’s Most Dangerous Pets (2011) and Shooting Joe Exotic (2021).

There’s also been a television drama show based mainly on the relationship between Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic called Joe vs. Carole that aired on Peacock on March 3, 2022.

Carole Baskin was at the center of the murder for hire plot that sent Exotic to prison

Exotic is ‘optimistic’ that he will be freed from prison in 2025, and already has ideas for life after being behind bars that includes a career in academia

Exotic is ‘optimistic’ that he will be freed from prison in 2025, and already has ideas for life after being behind bars that includes a career in academia.

The plan is for him to one day share his wealth of tiger knowledge in an educational setting, which could play out by him giving lectures.

Earlier this month, Roger filed an appeal from a denial of a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, which was denied by the lower court.

According to his attorney Roger Roots, there is sufficient evidence that shows that Joe’s initial trial was ‘fundamentally riddled with errors’ that went to the ‘very heart of the accusations, and ‘had that evidence been known at the time, he would not have been convicted.’