‘Tiger King’ announces from prison that he will run for president in 2024

The “Tiger King” is getting into the 2024 presidential race, he said Wednesday, despite the fact he is serving a 21-year federal prison sentence and that “Carole hates my guts.”

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According to Newsweek, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, known as “Joe Exotic” or the “Tiger King,” has launched a campaign website, with a personal message for his potential supporters claiming his campaign is not a joke.

“Thank you for your interest in my Campaign. Yes, I know I am in Federal Prison and you might think this is a joke but it’s not. It is my Constitutional right to do this even from here.”

“So put aside that I am gay, that I am in prison for now, that I used drugs in the past, that I had more than one boyfriend at once and that Carole hates my guts. This all has not a thing to do with me being able to be your voice. The best thing you have going for supporting me is that I am used to fighting my whole life just to get by. I am broke, they have taken everything I ever worked for away, and it’s time we take this country back,” he wrote on the campaign site.

Maldonado-Passage filed to run as a Libertarian.

Maldonado-Passage, the former owner of the Greater Wynnewood Animal Park, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of murder-for-hire in 2018.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma, prosecutors gave someone $3,000 to travel from Oklahoma to Florida to carry out the murder of big cat activist Carole Baskin.

Maldonado-Passage was also indicted on 19 counts of various wildlife violations and animal cruelty charges.

Maldonado-Passage attempted to have his conviction overturned but lost his appeal in 2022.