When it debuted in March 2020 on Netflix, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” became TV’s first pandemic hit, giving panicked viewers something to watch besides terrifying reports about the global proliferation of Covid-19.
It’s not just Joe Exotic, as he is known, fighting the law anymore: Several people made famous by “Tiger King” are facing legal trouble.
Maldonado-Passage has always maintained his innocence and still hopes to be set free — a requested pardon from former President Donald Trump never came, so Maldonado-Passage has refocused his efforts on Joe Biden.
This development has galvanized his new lawyer: John Phillips, who formerly represented both Anne McQueen, the onetime secretary of Baskin’s missing and declared dead former husband, Don Lewis, along with members of Lewis’s family.
Phillips also solicited new sworn statements from Maldonado-Passage’s bitter rival Jeff Lowe as well as Allen Glover, the former zoo handyman who testified during Maldonado-Passage’s criminal trial that Maldonado-Passage had paid him to kill Baskin.
In the show, she teams up with animal rights activists, detectives and other sources to try to find evidence of animal trafficking and abuse .
The Tiger King may have bequeathed his throne, however unwillingly, to his former business partner Jeff Lowe, but the Lowes have had a reversal of fortune, too.
These raids might appear in the “Tiger King” sequel, as Lowe told the authorities present that he had filmed them and would sell the footage to Netflix, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service agent who participated.
After they lost the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park to Carole Baskin, the Lowes subsequently tried to start up a new complex, the Tiger King Park in Thackerville, Okla., but never managed to open it to the public.
It’s still unclear how severe any Justice Department penalties might be — both sides have agreed in principle to settle the case but it is dragging on thanks to the Lowes’ “continued noncompliance” in providing animal records, according to an order filed by a judge last month.
Look ma, no cavities! John Finlay, billed in “Tiger King” as Maldonado-Passage’s ex-husband — although he disputes that they were ever married — was missing multiple teeth when he appeared in the original series.
Finlay now says that his three-way wedding with Joe Exotic and Travis Maldonado in 2014 was fake — a publicity stunt for a reality show that Joe had planned.
The former head zookeeper at facilities operated by both Maldonado-Passage and Lowe, Erik Cowie started getting into trouble of his own this spring.
Stark, the owner of Wildlife in Need, in Charlestown, Ind., has been buffeted by legal troubles in which he lost his animals, his property and his firearms. After former staff members accused him of animal abuse, Stark, who advertised his facility as a nonprofit, was found by the U.S.D.A.
Expect to see some of these events in “Tiger King 2,” including the removal and relocation of more than 200 animals from his facility in September 2020.
Another warrant was issued in late September, for intimidation and battery, after an Indiana deputy attorney general told police Stark had threatened him during an inspection of Stark’s facility.
In June, a federal judge ordered Stark to pay the nonprofit group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals more than $730,000 in legal fees stemming from various court battles with him.
Antle, the owner of Myrtle Beach Safari, in South Carolina — also known as The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species — was indicted in October 2020 on charges of felony wildlife trafficking and misdemeanor animal cruelty.