'Tiger King' Star Joe Exotic Doesn't Have a Job Or Income To Pay Carole Baskin $800k Judgment
April 3 2023, Published 5:30 p.m. ET
Caged Tiger King star Joe Exotic is too broke to pay his archenemy, Carole Baskin. That’s the claim being put forth by the reality star’s website manager, Tamara Springer, as he tries to fight off Baskin's attempt to collect more than $800,000 from the imprisoned tiger-loving zookeeper, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.
“Joseph does not have a job in prison or any income,” Springer wrote on March 31, 2023, replying to a federal court summons to seize the cash Baskin won in a 2011 trademark infringement lawsuit against Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado.
In a handwritten filing obtained by RadarOnline.com, Springer, who has publicly identified herself as Joe Exotic’s executive assistant and power of attorney, told the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma the brash-talking tiger man is penniless.
“I do not have anything of value belonging to Joseph Maldonado, including property or cash,” Springer wrote in documents. “I am an unpaid volunteer and have my own job and business, for which I pay my own taxes.”
Emphasizing the legal position, Springer scrawled and twice underlined “Does Not Apply” to the front of the three-page federal summons.
Springer, who is overseeing Joe’s finances as he serves 21 years in a Texas federal prison following his 2020 conviction in a murder-for-hire plot to eliminate Baskin, also wrote “N/A,” or not applicable, and a line of ZEROS on a worksheet where she was ordered to detail Joe Exotic’s earnings.
Springer, who is named as a defendant in the summons said Joe's enemies are feeding Baskin false information about his financial assets.
"I am his power of attorney, so I have the legal authority to do his banking and handle his finances, but he doesn't really have any -- other than the money the fans donate to his commissary which they pay directly into the prison," she told RadarOnline.com. "I figure they are feeding all this information to Carole, and she probably thinks that I have all this money, but I don't."
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Baskin filed for the garnishment on February 24, seeking to collect on a nearly $1 million judgment issued by a federal court after it found Joe Exotic liable for inappropriately lifting her “Big Cat Rescue” name, logos, and images. The drama unfolded in the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King.
The summons, for a balance of $814,465.14, was filed on month after RadarOnline.com exclusively quoted the reality star lambasting Baskin for claiming her missing husband, Don Lewis, is “alive and well” in Costa Rica.
“Don Lewis is NOT alive, I have her original diary and trust me she hated him so bad she could not kill him fast enough,” the gun-toting former zookeeper alleged in January. “I investigated her so much I am 100% sure she, her father who is now passed away and …. killed Don Lewis and ground him up.”
Baskin, 61, created a media firestorm on January 18, when she rediscovered an undated U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigative report claiming her ex, who vanished in 1997 and was declared legally dead in 2002, was spotted in the Central American country.
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The money grab comes as Joe Exotic announced his long-shot candidacy for president in 2024 — and some insiders believe it’s an attempt by Baskin to foil his grassroots fundraising efforts.
“I know if Carole is not going to get anything from her (Springer),” an insider told RadarOnline.com. “Carole just wants some publicity, she wants anything that’s going to mess things up for Joe. It looks like a publicity ploy to stay relevant, to stay in the news… Joe doesn’t have any real money.”
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