Joe Exotic’s arch enemy Carole Baskin has sold the Tiger King’s former Oklahoma zoo, with stipulations that the property can’t house exotic animals again for 100 years and barring the new owners from any connection with its now jailed former owner.
Baskin, who had previously vowed any new owners of the former Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park would not use it as a zoo, sold the property for $140,000 to Francisco and Nelly Vazquez in June, TMZ reported.
The deed also stipulates that the new owners can’t name any new business on the property after anything related to its past, including “Tiger King,” G.W. Zoo, or anything using the words “tiger” or “big cat.”
Baskin got control of the property in mid-2020 as payment of a $1 million judgment she won against Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, for trademark infringement several years ago. Maldonado-Passage transferred the property to his mother and Jeff Lowe, but a judge found that transfer fraudulent and awarded the property to Baskin.
Maldonado-Passage is in prison after his conviction in January 2020 for hiring two different hitmen to kill Baskin and violating federal wildlife laws. He was sentenced to 22 years, but a federal appeals panel in July ordered the trial court to resentence him because it erred in calculating the sentence guidelines, as CrimeOnline previously reported. It’s not clear when that will take place.
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[Featured image: FILE – Joseph Maldonado-Passage at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in 2013. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)]