Joe Exotic doesn’t receive pardon from President Trump

ARDMORE, Okla. (KXII) - 142 people were given clemency last night by former president Donald Trump, but Texoma’s own Joe Exotic was not one of them.

Wednesday morning the Tiger King’s Twitter account tweeted a statement suggesting he wasn’t pardoned because of his sexuality.

The tweet said he was “too innocent and too gay to deserve a pardon from Trump,” ending with a jab at the president’s son, saying “his corrupt friends all come first.”

Joe Exotic is serving 22 years in federal prison in a murder-for-hire plot to kill nemesis and big cats rights activist Carole Baskin, both now worldwide celebrities after the hit Netflix series.

Wednesday morning his appeals attorney began arguing before a federal judge to start the appeals process.

Joe Exotic’s investigative consultant, Jim Rathmann said he’ll stay busy in the next few months on Joe’s appeal.

“They’re gonna continue to push forward,” Rathmann. “They’re gonna continue to exhort all efforts that they have within the court system.”

He said a successful appeal requires a lot of new evidence or something powerful enough to make the court reconsider the original guilty verdict.

“I believe some of that was already found with the recent audio tapes that are out there now where the alleged hitman was claiming that all the entire thing was a set up,” Rathmann said.

His plan is to keep going.

“It’s continuing to investigate,” Rathmann said. “Continuing to follow up on new leads, find those inconsistencies and try to get Joe a new trial or get his conviction thrown out all together.”

The bottom line is Tuesday’s news was a bummer, but Rathmann said it’s not the final say.

“Joe’s pretty disappointed,” Rathmann said. “He’s obviously quite upset that he did not get that pardon. His legal team was confident that it was coming. Unfortunately it did not come from President Trump, but the mission is still the same, which is to get Joe out.”

The federal court doesn’t have a time limit to decide if the arguments presented Wednesday are worth pursuing a new trial, so it could take anywhere from a few months to a year for Joe Exotic to learn if he can get an appeal.

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