Joe Exotic Expresses Admiration For Trump: ‘You Can Become President Of The United States As A Felon’

by Jacob BarkerFebruary 2, 2025, 12:38 amNews >

Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Allen Maldonado, is finding hope in President Donald Trump‘s election victory, claiming that “you can become the President of the United States as a felon.”

Maldonado, who is serving a 22-year prison sentence for wildlife crimes and attempted murder for hire, told Entertainment Weekly that he looks up to the newly inaugurated president. “I could take my time served if somebody thinks I’ve done something wrong,” Maldonado said. “And I can move on with my life being a felon because he’s the president as a felon. And if you can become the president of the United States as a felon, hey, I can finish off my life.”

“I’ve got two types of cancer going on, and I don’t even know how much time I have left,” he continued. “But I can finish that happily as a felon; give me time to serve. I don’t need a pardon; commute my sentence to the time served. Not because of who I am, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

Maldonado has maintained his innocence since his conviction, continually advocating for his pardon or a commutation of his sentence, first from former President Joe Biden and now from Trump. Trump was convicted last May on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records related to his 2016 presidential election campaign.

Maldonado published claims about his conviction and the allegations made against him, claiming that he’s “a political prisoner for the Big Cat Safety Act,” a federal law enacted in December 2022 prohibiting private ownership and exhibition of big cats. Maldonado has claimed that he has suffered abuse while being held at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, “I want to testify in front of Congress because I’ve lived it for seven years.”

“I’m not scared of being a voice for the other 165,000 people stuck in this system,” Maldonado said. “It wasn’t only weaponized against President Trump, the DOJ. The DOJ has been weaponized against a lot of us. We don’t have $60 million to hire lawyers.”