Unheard: True Crime in Their Own Words - Joe Exotic Speaks From Prison About Tiger King and His Conviction

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

In this episode, Justin sits down with Joe Exotic to talk about life before and after the Tiger King phenomenon, the legal battles that landed him in prison, and why he continues to insist he was wrongly convicted. Joe discusses the conspiracy-to-commit-murder case that put him behind bars, the role he believes perjury and unreliable testimony played in the trial, and why he argues the justice system failed to fully investigate key details.The conversation also explores the broader impact of the case. Joe reflects on how incarceration has affected his life, his health, and the people around him, while Justin examines how media coverage and public perception shaped the narrative that millions of viewers came to believe. They discuss the difference between entertainment and reality, and how documentaries and news coverage can influence how the public views guilt, innocence, and accountability.The episode also touches on the world of big cats and private zoos, including debates over animal care, euthanasia decisions, and the ethical questions surrounding exotic animal ownership. Natasha joins the conversation to share her own background growing up around animals and to challenge some of the claims and assumptions made in the Tiger King series.Throughout the discussion, the focus remains on larger questions about justice, media influence, and the legal system. Joe talks about his ongoing efforts to appeal his conviction and his hopes for clemency, while Justin presses on what accountability should look like in controversial cases like this one.The result is a candid conversation about fame, prison, the power of storytelling, and the complicated intersection of law, media, and public opinion.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Unheard, True Crime in their own words. This is the show where people tell their stories in their own voice without filters or interruption. Today's guest is Joseph Maldonado Passage. Many know him as Joe Exotic. His life has been marked by triumphs, tragedies, and choices that have taken him down past most of us could never imagine. He's lived through struggles with family, animals, love, freedom, and the justice system. Joe, thank you so much for being here. I know we don't have a ton of time with you.

And what I want to do here is instead of telling your story for you, I'd rather give you floor and give you enough time to get your message out. So I'll just say this. You have a lot going on right now and a lot of what has happened in the past with the Tiger King has led you to being where you are today. What do you want people to really understand about who you are and what you've been going through and kind of what your next steps are and what you're looking to try to accomplish? Okay. First you know, my name is no longer Joseph Mondramato Palsage because I got a divorce and got rid of his name. So it's just Joseph Molderato. sorry

for 2.6 million dollars he ran off with and left me here without a dime. I shit candy's name. That's fair statement. But anyway, you know, the main thing that I would like the public to understand because not very many people watch

season two of Tiger King because it came out in 22 after the pandemic. is all of the weaknesses that the government's used to conspire and create this crime that I've been in prison for. I'm James Giersen, Jeff Lowe, Alan Glover, Low and Lowe. They all got on season two of Tiger King and admitted to Pardry on world television. Okay, and then Alan Blubber went one step further and took the film crew and the lawyers to the zoo and showed him where he had a murder weapon in the woods behind the zoo, where him and Jeff's original plan was to kill me

while I was running for governor in 2018. So my biggest question is, why has no one been charged with surgery or conspiracy to commit murder on a grubitorial candidate? Because there's no structure of limitations on conspiracy to commit murder. and why the hell am I still in jail? So didn't you have people come, like, from our last conversation that we had, didn't people come up and have flat out admitted that what they said wasn't true?

Yeah, we have video depositions and we have signed affidavits. All right. That's the bad thing about the federal system especially is they are so proud of their 99% conviction rate that they denied all of my appeals because they don't want. to lose this conviction. And that's why President Trump and the primacy is the only thing that's going to get me out of here sooner than the next five years because I've lost all of my appeals. And the reason why I've lost all of my appeals is not because I don't have the evidence.

It's because, you know, when they arrested me, they held me without bond, and basically kidnapped me, and then they kept me in solitary confinement for the first two and a half years. Okay, and during my trial of being in control, I couldn't work to pay a real lawyer. I couldn't help find evidence. I couldn't talk to nobody. I couldn't help defend myself. So I had to use public defenders. And every appellate court has denied my appeal for a new trial based on all this new evidence

because my public defenders did not raise enough objections during my trial. Wow. And real quick, because it's also reminds me of something to say for people who might want to learn a little bit more. And I forget the name of it. And we can definitely put it in the show notes as well for anybody who's watching or listening to this. What is your website where you have all of this evidence up for people to look at? It's fairly exotic official.com. And there's a drop-down box.

You know, the three bars are drop-down box. You go to the evidence like, and, man, I mean, there's good cues of evidence there. But the main evidence that we have is, you know, after they put me in jail and then Carol kicked Jeff Lowe off of my zoo, you know, he went and started to build his own Tiger King Park in Southern Oklahoma. And then the feds turned out of him with Peter and Carol, and they took his animals away, and then he got evicted off the zoo because it was, I mean, his zoo. we called some little lady and to buy that's property. And she had him evicted. Well, he wanted revenge,

okay? And the first thing that the federal government should have known was using ex-convicts as undercover informants, they recorded the federal agencies the entire time.

Okay, so Jeff Lowe and Lauren and Alan and James turned over their cell phones to my attorney's John Phillips. and they thought they deleted everything that they you know they would implicate them in anything bad but they forgot to go clean the cash files out and my lawyers recovered over 700 phone recordings text messages and videos of the federal agents telling them that of fabricate evidence from a trial and and had a lie and you know they're on that on that website joke's not a official.com on the evidence link. There's also videos and recording straight

off of Lauren's phone where I and Jeff were fighting and she was secretly recording her own husband where they were admitting to literally raping girls. Okay. And this is the kind

of stuff that the federal government is overlooking. And James, there's I report there that my lawyer filed what the U.S. Chinese office where James has over 200 stolen identities

from people with Social Security Guards, Drummond, Lopins, and anything else that they were getting fake loans on all of these people's names online. And the shame part is, you know, I'm a grown man, I've dealt with this for a year.

I'll make it through five more years if that's what it takes. But the shame is is the federal government is so held in on their 99% conviction rate that they are leaving these people with that much evidence of their crimes out there to continue to brutalize more victims. And how are things going, because I know you mentioned President Trump, how are things going with that the appeal for a pardon or clemency? Okay, three weeks ago, my lawyers got an email from the pardoner.

attorney's office at the White House. They said that my clemency was under investigation. And then the following Sunday after that, my counselor here at the prison called me in and shoved me an email at EGoth that you had to respond to from the pardon attorney about my clemency. And they wanted an update on me. And he reported back that I have completed 21 courses, classes in the last six months. I have not been in trouble in several years.

I'm five years from the door and I have never disrespected the staff and he recommended that they let me go. So that's that. And then, you know, another one of my attorneys on top of, I've got

like 11 attorneys. Another one of my attorneys that's high profile is lead by McCatherine, the attorney for Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, he built me three days ago and said that there's significant progress on my pardon and he's supposed to come

see me this week. Okay. That's good news for you. That's obvious. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Let me circle back to something, a different conversation real quick because I think that this is

important for people to know. And I know that if the podcast that you did with us, Real Victims, gets to a point where we get more episodes out. This will come out a little bit more detail. But going back to the original Tiger King, you know, that came out, you know, during COVID that everybody watched, that that pretty much caused all of this, right? And it wasn't just, and despite, you know, your personal feelings with anybody else that was on the Tiger King, and we will loosely call it a documentary, maybe we'll just call it a series. Pretty much every single person who participated in the Tiger King, with the exception of the director's life pretty much got ruined is that pretty safe

and you're spot on okay because the director was being funded by pita okay and everybody that was in tiger kings that lives got ruined pita now has our animals okay at their funded sanctuaries doing nothing but the same thing we were doing on urging 50 dollars per person to see our tigers and that's what this whole thing was about and that's why a lot of people don't understand that I didn't I didn't film for Tiger King they took everything off of my YouTube channel I didn't get paid for Tiger King I was already in jail

two years before Tiger King even came out and then hell I was in jail in 2018 and Tiger King's season two didn't come out until 2022 all right but yeah it was it was an agenda to pass the big get thick yet and for Peter to shut us all down

and they were pretty successful in doing so they were very successful you know and Carol became a millionaire over it you know she gave all our tigers away to tiger turpentine creek over in Arkansas and she don't have to take care of tigers anymore

and she sold the property there at Big Cat Rescue to a Development Group for apartments for $19.5 million because of Tiger King. So she's sitting eye off the aisle while everybody else is either sitting in jail or starting completely open from scratch because of the movie Tiger King. Did you actually, did you ever watch Tiger King all the way through? I watched only season one about a year ago. It was the first time I see. Okay, so let's talk about season one then, you know, the first.

one that you did. You know how you know that how you were portrayed in that, right? Obviously, it was this, you know, over the top kind of like character. And this is the second time that you and I have spoken like this. And to me, you are a very different person than the character that was shown on TV. And I mean that in a positive way, by the way. I don't know if you remember too much of the show. But Rick Kirkham, the guy that was smoking a cigarette the entire time with the leather,

kind of cowboy looking at it. Okay, he was my producer for my online show, and we had a contract with the company at L.A. for a reality show. So he is basically the guru that scripted everything that you saw me say, okay, because it was for a reality show. And then he took payment from the producer of Tiger King to turn in and talk ship. You know, and that's one of the things that really disappointed me. about the whole show. The other things that just pointed me about Tiger King is,

A, it made me out to be the meth game. And I was the only one in the entire show with a full set of teeth wearing clothes. Fair point. Fair point. You know, who in a real TV show, especially documentary,

okay, that's supposed to be a documentary? Who's the airway is a hitman in a bathtub? I mean, somebody who wants a lot of views. Right, right. It's the jock value. And then John Finley running around with three teeth and no shirt all the time. But, you know, one of the most upsetting parts that I saw was theft, the girl that lost your arm. Okay.

If Tiger King would have been a documentary about saving tigers or the plight of tigers, they would have set Seth in front of that very tiger cage because he was still alive because staff went to bat and took responsibility so the government didn't make us put him to sleep that day and she could have helped save tigers and she could have talked about tigers in the wild and the plight of tigers in captivity

but instead they set her in a junkyard to make it look like the zoo where's a junkyard you know just the people that worked at that zoo including Eric Cowie who is now dead from

drinking himself to death really could have could have stepped up and done something for tigers but instead they took $20,000 dollars cash from Eric Good the producer arts at top shit and

be famous for 15 months you know that you kind of remind me of something too that i wanted to bring up um again from previous discussions i think that this isn't a good a good talking point um the way that that show or that series portrayed you and the way you treated animals i i've heard a very different version of that from you and and i think that if you're okay to talk about it um the way you treated the animals uh you know so people understand from your side how you know how that really was right me after you watched the show, where did you ever see me abuse an animal? I don't remember seeing that at all.

And I know that the thing came out was about you. I think shooting tigers or shooting guns. I can't remember exactly. But yeah. Yeah, I shot five 23-year-old tigers that weren't going to make it through the winter. And my veterinarian protocols specifically said euthanization by gunshot, signed off by my USDA inspect. and signed up by my veterinarian.

Because in order to tranquilize a tiger so a vet can walk in and kill it, okay, you got to shoot it with a, got an eight-inch door, okay, that travels so fast that when it hits the animal, it has to penetrate so far that it goes past the court. So that way it doesn't fall out. Okay. And this animal is screaming.

and growling and climbing the fence and running around from the shock value and the pain of the door and then depending on how fat it is, how skinny it is, whether it's been drugged a bunch of times,

how high the adrenaline is. I've had to shoot and tranquilize lions up to five and six times before they finally go to sleep. Okay. And this is a period of over the power

of torturing this animal and then they go through seizures and convulsions and throwing up and it's horrific it really is horrific but they wouldn't let me describe this to the jury I even wanted to show the jury a dart okay

so I ended their suffering in a millimeter of a second and then you know they're like, oh, well, you buried five tigers on your property. Well, what the hell did you want me to bear it?

Okay. Did you want me to stuff them or skin them? Like most people would have? Hell no. In the back of our property, we had a cemetery area where every animal that passed away. We respectfully buried in a grave, fully intact. We didn't take their teeth. We didn't take their height or nothing. and everybody's like oh well Rick found five

targets which you shot buried on your on your zoo or did you want me to bury him in a bargain or would you prefer me to take him to a landfill you can't win with some people you just can't okay so here's the other

and they didn't charge me with animal cruelty or animal abuse they charged me with taking five endangered species without a permit like the Game Warden thinks I should have went and got a permit. Okay. Now, to get a permit, there really is no such thing, and you can use AI and ask AI.

Is there a permit with the Federal Wildlife Service to use the eyes of tiger? And it'll tell you, no, nobody's in a file for one. Okay, but let's say if I would have tried, would it touch seven, eight months to get a permit? and those animals went all the way through an Oklahoma winner and then Peter would have been on my ass because I was exploiting sick crippled tigers

and making them suffer to keep on the exhibit so the animal that's why would I get out of here I never learned another animal again because there's no winning you can't win against animal people

if they have it in their mind that the animals don't belong in cages, okay? But the very people that bitch about that go to Walmart, need to escape or buy hamburger, and they have the guards for that cow that just got

a screw gun put in the middle of his head and butchered, because they don't see it, or they don't hear about it. Show me anyone else on this planet and you can look at all of my YouTube videos. They can

walk in a cage and lay on the ground, with 14 to 20 full rogue tigers and lions and let them love on you without any fear. Because if you were abusing a tiger, trust me, you would never walk in his cage. Yeah, I think that would be probably a really bad idea. And I remember seeing those where you were getting on the ground with them and playing with them. So clearly there wasn't a little bit. Almost the other picture, you've seen me with the tiger, the lion, and kissing them on the face. that would do that if the tiger ate is you yeah i mean you're right

so here's the thing if you're not if if and when or when you get out because you know your max five years you know sooner you know if obviously if you get a pardon um if you're not going back into the animal world what is the plan what do you want to do okay well that's a little thing that the time he really didn't show the real joe exotic about okay because i spent basically my entire life community service. I was the youngest police sheep from Texas of history. I was a paramedic for 30 years working on various different ambulance services from Dallas to Oklahoma. And everybody thought that she was about exploit animals for money. Every holiday, Christmas,

Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Easter, Valentine's Day. Every holiday, that zoo is open for free and I cooked a full meal for anybody that didn't have anywhere to go and let me tell you that zoo on Christmas and Thanksgiving was busier than most weekend days normally

because there's so many people out there that don't go home for the holidays because they fight with their family or they have no family so that zoo and those people were my family and then And, you know, I did Tyush for Tots where we went around and raised money for toys.

And we have the local bikers. I'd go around with us some Christmas Day through like four different cities and passed out toys to underprivileged kids. We had an Animal Miracle Network where we grinded last wishes for Milo kids. and actually that's where I was when my TV studio burned down was I was in Chicago granting a last wish and then on the movie they accused me at Burnham up the TV studio down

and they knew I wasn't even in the state but my biggest one is Operation Tomorrow where I fix little kids' faces you know where they fix little kids' faces and even from prison

I've raised enough money to fix 11 kids as little faces. And when I get out of here, I'm going to Mexico. I'm going to give my husband. And I have a goal of fixing 5,000 little kids' faces because now I have the platform to do it. And I've been offered a world tour for a concert that I want to take. And I'm sure, you know, I've got three contracts for movies where I get out of here. And I'll say this for the people listening.

You can follow Joe on Instagram, and he, believe it or not, he runs his own Instagram account. So when you see somebody posting, it's not his team, it's him. And it's a pretty, no matter how you want to feel about him, it's a pretty interesting follow. Like we were talking about you were the youngest sheriff or chief, sorry, chief. That picture was on his, I saw that. You posted that a few weeks ago, I think. And, you know, that's all his thing. So you can kind of see, you know, he does bring receipts.

for a lot of this stuff. And then let me ask you this because I think that when you're doing things to help kids, obviously that's amazing. So I want you to plug this real quick if you can. How can people help who want to participate with that? Okay. You know, because I don't want you saying to me money. So just get on appraisal.org.

And it's only $250 to fix a little kid's face for life. And that's the most amazing part is so they don't have to grow up with a hair lip or or being made fun of their whole life, $250 will change a child's life forever. Okay. And just donate the $2.50 and you can put, you know, in honor of or whoever you can, you can put for Joe Exxorny, you know, so that way they know that you're part team, Joey Zardick, and you're helping fix little kids' faces. So I want to go back and thank you for sharing that.

We can put that link in the show notes as well. so that people can just click on it. Let me go back to something you were talking about a few minutes ago, which is how you had the zoo open. You would cook meals for people. When you look back, you know, there's people who were in your life that, you know, from previous conversations, let's just say what it is. They used you, right?

So when you look back, who are the people that stood by you when things got hardest? The only person was John Rankie, the guy with no legs. Mm-hmm. the only one that's that's sad I'm not good that he was there but it's it's it's kind of a sad situation and it's definitely

and it's the only one that's came and seen me and and he's the only one that I I talked to and he's the only one you know but the sad guard is is she was my manager for 14 years when all this happened and you know the public defenders

refused to call him as a witness to everything that happened interesting I didn't know that Yeah. I had a list of 30 people to call his witnesses. And you know who I got? Who? They called, they called Britney Pete. The attorney with Peter is my witness. No, that doesn't seem very helpful for you. But we've, we've also learned that when you're dealing with public defenders, they don't really work that hard. Yeah, they don't because they're getting paid regardless.

Yeah, they're getting paid regardless. And it's usually not that much money. And so they'll do what they have to do just because they have to do it. And that's about it. Well, my public defenders, I think already had a deal made and the prosecuting attorney because as soon as my conviction, I was convicted and I was sent me, my public defender retired. And the prosecutor that prosecuted me became a magistrate judge. Interesting.

Let me, let's see if we're talking about the case real quick. you know, obviously one of the things that people think about, you know, we know, you're in prison, which is, which is not ideal for you, obviously, or anybody for that matter. And you're in there because it was, it was twice, was it, refresh me how it was you were, it was murder for hire plot, right? But it was it two times that they charge you for that? Yeah. Okay. When they first arrested me, only had one charge, period. And that was bonfire. Okay. And then when I said, look, I have done nothing wrong and I want to exercise my constitutional right and have a trial. Then they superseded my indictment with 22 more charges.

Another murder fire charge. And 21 curages are violating the endangered species out. And so what do you want people to know about the whole, that whole gamut of charges and the murder for higher thing? What do you want people to know that they might not know or what they might? think they know that's not necessarily accurate. You know, everything that they got me on or convicted me with was nothing but hearsay from Jeff and Allen and James and Lorne. Because what people out in the free world don't understand is in a state trial. If they would have charged me with a state murderifier, they couldn't have used circumstantial evidence or hearsay.

they had to have evidence like money changing hands or notes or text messages or something. Where in federal court, federal court, that's why they have such a high conviction rate, is they can get two people to say you did something and put you in jail for life. That's, that's, well, we do know that the federal government. And, you know, just real quick, because I only got a couple minutes left. And that is why. don't allow cameras in a federal courtroom because they don't want that crooked shit documented. Okay.

And then take President Trump, for example. They indicted that man, 94 times because he kept one to go to trial. Okay. So if the president of the United States can get indicted 94 times, what the hell do you think mean you have a chance? I mean, look at Ditty's situation too for people like me and you. You know, it's, you know, we don't have that kind of money. It takes a lot of money to fight. The federal government, you know, I sprites in three quarters of million dollars.

President Trump spent almost 60 million. I know Diddy's at, I know Diddy's at like 11 or 12 million. And that's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. Who the hell in the normal world has that kind of money? I mean, I know I sure don't. So. Just to show you how scary this could have been as far as the setup is,

Because, you know, I had an office with Jeff in there, Lauren in there, Rinky in there, three girls secretaries. And I never logged out of my computer. Jesus Christ, they could have really destroyed my life and downloaded child porn. Yeah. If they wanted to be in a man, I feed God every day that they set me up from her to fire and not child porn. Yeah, that's a very different. And I know Penal system

You'd much rather Have murder for higher plot So hell yeah So everybody out there You listen to do this Make sure you have passwords On your phone

Nobody has access To your computers Your phone Or nothing Make sure you have Anything to where You gotta show A fingerprint

To get your phone to open Or a password You know A number or something Do not ever ever leave your social media open or anything else

because it's not easy to destroy your life. Well, and I know that you don't have a lot of time left, so I want to ask something that probably, I don't think anybody's probably asked you before and something that maybe they don't nobody knows, and this is going to be kind of more of a fun one, I think, for you. What's one thing about

your younger years that people would never guess about you? Oh. That you're going to be sharing. You know, I had a pretty rough childhood so there wasn't a whole lot of happy stuff about my childhood um my younger years than nobody would never expect about me sorry i know i didn't mean to blindside you with that one joe i don't know something different and positive you know this is kind of a positive note and it's it's kind of fun i mean i don't know my child go ahead sorry go ahead my childhood was not

all that great either so i mean depending on the amount of trauma like i have giant block that I don't remember at all. So you may be in that same position, and if so, that's okay. You know, I mean, the best thing about my childhood is

when I lived in the mountains growing up as a kid in the mountains and I had a pet porcupine and a pet animal. That's a bit of my childhood. So your love for animals started early, what you're saying. Well, well, Joe,

I so appreciate you taking the time. I know that we're limited on it at this point. And that might have been, that might have been it. I think it was. The prison system just kind of cut out on it. And so I'm glad we got that one in. So here's what I want to say about this.

This is a conversation. I don't want people to misconstrue this. I'm not sitting here, you know, defending Joe on what he did or he didn't do. The purpose of this is to give you guys a glimpse into his version of events. And that's what this whole podcast is about. That's why it's unheard, true crime in their own words. and those were his own words. And he does have a way.

And here's what I'll say about this. No matter how you feel about him, he does have a website with bona fide, legitimate court documents that you can go through. We'll link it in the show notes together. So you guys can go back and look at it. But the point here is we're not sitting here with somebody like him who's been convicted for murder for hire

who has the allegations against him. I'm not sitting here judging him one way or the other or saying that he should be exonerated or not. that's for you guys to decide your personal opinion. My goal here is just to give you guys or give him the platform to share that with you all from a different perspective. And like I said earlier, this is my second time speaking to him. There's another podcast that I'm working on with a friend of mine. And we recorded a part with it for him.

I don't know when that one's coming out. Don't go in the comments and ask me. We're still working on logistics for that. But that's why I wanted him to come on because when I had a conversation with him several months back and did that recording, I heard a very different, that was the first time I spoke with him. This is the second time ever that I spoke with him. And I heard a very different version of him than what was portrayed on TV. And I felt that that was very valuable for listeners to hear that version and then make your own

assessment look into what you say. And I'm not, again, not telling you to believe him or not believe him. I'm just giving you his point of view. So with that being said, you know, we're going to have this up on socials. We're going to have all of his socials there, everything like that, so that you can follow him. You can go and check out those documents. You can do the smile thing if you want to donate, you know, to that and help that out whatever you want to do. But, you know, when you see it on the social and stuff and this comes out and you're seeing clips, drop in the comments.

You know, what you think about this, you know, does this change your opinion on Joe Exotic? Is this a different side that you didn't expect to see from him? Because I would really like y'all's feedback in your insight on this. And with that said, I appreciate you listening to another episode. And we'll be back soon with even more. Make sure to hit that follow on the podcast and wherever you're subscribing on, said that you don't miss it when we roll out new episodes. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the individual's speaking and do not necessarily reflect those of the host.

Unheard is intended to provide a platform for personal stories and lived experiences, not to establish facts, determine guilt, innocence, or provide legal, medical, or professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to conduct their own research and form their own conclusions. Thank you for listening to Unheard. Thank you.