Joseph Maldonado-Passage, known as Joe Exotic, is requesting a pardon from President Donald Trump.
CBS News obtained the final draft of a letter penned by Maldonado-Passage to Trump, which he will receive on Thursday.
Maldonado-Passage opened his letter, “If I have ever looked up to anyone it would be you, not because I need you to save my life but because you stand for what you believe no matter what anyone thinks.”
He noted he voted for Trump in the 2016 election, the same year he campaigned for president.
Maldonado-Passage expressed his disbelief for the way federal investigators have treated the president.
“I am begging you to listen to the millions who see the truth. I’m asking you to listen to your own son Donald Jr. and make this right and grant me a miracle ‘a pardon’ and let me put this behind me and go save my dad he is 86 and go live my life with my husband ‘Dillon,'” Maldonado-Passage wrote to Trump.
He continued, “But most of all so I can return to helping sick children and the homeless, allow me to make you proud, to make American proud, to make the world proud. Be my hero, please.”
“Be my hero please.” The Tiger King aka Joe Exotic wrote this letter to President #DonaldTrump from prison, seeking a pardon. Makes direct appeal to President’s distrust of fed investigators by framing himself as the victim of dishonest DOJ that lied to further “it’s own agenda.” pic.twitter.com/WKBFOnNeLc
— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCNN) September 9, 2020
In January, Maldonado-Passage was found guilty for a 2017 murder-to-hire plot to kill animal rights activist, Carole Baskin.
During his press briefing on April 8, a reporter asked Trump if he would consider a pardon for Maldonado-Passage, as IJR previously reported.
“I don’t know, I know nothing about it,” Trump said.
The reporter noted Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joked about lobbying for a pardon for Maldonado-Passage during an interview on SiriusXM’s “Jim Norton and Sam Roberts” radio show.
Still, Donald Trump Jr. said he did not “even know exactly what he was charged with.”
Trump told the reporter, “I’ll take a look.”
