Tiger King’s Joe Exotic has requested a new judge take over his civil rights case in which he’s asking for a £72million (£89million) settlement – making allegations that the current judge is homophobic with a ‘conflict of interest’ against him.
Exotic Joe – aka Joe Maldonado-Passage – is currently in prison for 22 years after being convicted of attempting to hire a hitman to kill arch rival and animal activist, Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue, as well as numerous animal cruelty charges.
However, following the launch of the Netflix documentary and the worldwide attention the case has got, Joe is now requesting a presidential pardon, and is making numerous settlement claims totalling £77.1million ($95million).
But in new documents obtained by Mirror Online, Joe has filed a motion with the District Court of Oklahoma asking Judge Scott Palk to recuse himself from his case.
Citing a ‘major conflict of interest’, Joe labels Judge Palk homophobic, and having made declarations in previous cases against him that makes the eccentric zoo owner believe he will not get a fair trial.
It reads: ‘The Plaintiff argues that not only does Judge Scott Palk have a conflict of interest in all of these cases but has a borderline conflict of being an animals rights advocate, and homophobic due to the hostile and agitated remarks made in open court toward the Plaintiff during sentencing of the criminal case, of which he should have recused himself from the beginning of the criminal case.’
‘Remarks made like “I will make sure you are never around another animal the rest of your life” – The plaintiff has never been accused of animal abuse in his life to deserve such a statement.’
The statement goes on to claim Palk was speaking in a ‘hostile voice’ and defended the potential selling of lion cubs ‘which he didn’t do, but even if he did, is legal in the state of Texas’.
‘So all of this was un-called for remarks due to Judge Scott Palk’s prejudice because of being involved in all the civil cases,’ it continued.
‘So the Plaintiff is asking for the motion to have Judge Scott Palk recuse himself and a non bias Judge to be appointed this case.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Judge Palk for comment.
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is available on Netfilx.
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