Tiger King’s Joe Exotic found love in a hopeless place, a federal penitentiary in Fort Worth.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, announced his planned nuptials to an illegal immigrant and fellow inmate on X.
“Meet Jorge Marquez he is 33. He is so amazing and is from Mexico. Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we [will] be leaving America when we both get out. Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago,” Exotic wrote of the man who is 28 years his junior.
Marquez, whose full name is Jorge Marquez Flores, is reported to be serving jail time for being in the United States illegally and is set to be released from prison in mid-2025.
While the happy couple makes plans to turn the big house into a home, it is unclear when Exotic will spring from the hoosegow.
Exotic was convicted on almost two dozen counts, including 19 counts of wildlife crimes and two counts of hiring hitmen to kill animal activist Carole Baskin in 2019. He is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence. Multiple attempts proved unsuccessful, including court appeals and an effort to get then-President Donald Trump to pardon him in 2020.
Exotic has also reportedly retained a Fort Worth-based attorney to help his fiancé file asylum paperwork to stay in the U.S. when he is released.
Below his post, he attached a video of himself on what appears to be a prison telephone, calling his conviction a “set up” and encouraging watchers to comment on President Joe Biden’s and former President Donald Trump’s social media messages supportive of freeing him.
The jailbirds of feather have not indicated where they are registered or when they will tie the knot.
This is not the first time Cupid’s bow has struck the man made famous by the 2020 Netflix Documentary series “Tiger King,” from which he draws a nickname. Exotic was previously wed to Travis Maldonado in 2015 until they parted at his accidental death in 2017. He was then married to Dillon Passage that same year, but they divorced in 2023.
