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‘Be My Hero Please’: ‘Tiger King’ Star Joe Exotic Begs Trump for Pardon

Joe Exotic appealed to the president’s ego in a handwritten letter criticizing the Department of Justice.

Tiger King star Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, has penned a letter to President Trump begging for a pardon, according to a copy of the missive obtained by CBS News This Morning. Joe Exotic is currently being held in a Texas federal prison for his role in a murder-for-hire plot to kill fellow Tiger King star Carole Baskin. In the letter, he criticizes the Department of Justice, accusing federal prosecutors, FBI agents, and a federal wildlife agent of helping witnesses lie under oath at his trial. “Be my hero please,” Maldonado-Passage writes at the end of the letter, saying he hopes to “return to helping sick children and the homeless.” In the pardon application, he also insists that as a “gay, gun-toting redneck in Oklahoma,” he didn’t get a fair trial. Maldonado-Passage’s application hopes to waive the typical five-year wait time for a presidential pardon. Back in April, Trump said he’d “look into” a pardon for the Tiger King star.