Looks like there are even more cool cats and kittens in Carole Baskin’s future, now that a federal judge has ruled she should be awarded Joe Exotic’s Oklahoma zoo. According to Courthouse News Service, which published a copy of the ruling, the judge decided G.W. Exotic Animal Memorial Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, famously featured on Netflix’s Tiger King, should be given to the show’s de facto antagonist after determining that Joe Exotic, given name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, had transferred the deed of his zoo to his mother, Shirley M. Schreibvogel, specifically to hide the asset. The zoo, they determined, should have gone to Baskin as part of a million-dollar trademark-infringement judgement against Joe Exotic in 2013, which you might also remember from the docuseries.
Baskin’s Florida-based Big Cat Rescue eventually sued Joe Exotic’s mother herself in 2016 and, as of Monday, has been awarded the property. As for the zoo’s current owner, Jeff Lowe, he has 120 days to leave and, more importantly, take the current animal residents with him. Joe Exotic, meanwhile, remains in prison, where he is currently serving 22 years for attempting to hire a hitman to kill Baskin, as well as violations of the Endangered Species Act, so maybe he won’t find out about this for a while.
