A federal court judge is recommending that Joe Exotic’s $94 million lawsuit against former zoo partner Jeff Lowe be dismissed. Prior to his incarceration, Exotic sold his G.W. Zoo to Lowe, who renamed it the Greater Wynnewood Animal Park.
In addition to suing Lowe, he is also suing the U.S. Federal Wildlife Service, the United States Department of Interior, along with three individuals involved with the feds. 57-year-old Exotic claimed that there was a conspiracy, involving multiple officials, to set him up. He said they launched an investigation to “allow them to file charges to put me in jail and out of business. Therefore stealing my property and promoting an animal rights agenda.”
But, in court docs obtained by The Blast, the judge said Exotic’s civil lawsuit, “largely challenges the circumstances surrounding his allegedly ’false arrest,’ the criminal investigation (including his ’intentional entrapment’), his allegedly ’malicious prosecution,’ his trial proceedings with purportedly ’perjured testimony,’ his ’false conviction,’ and his ’ false imprisonment.’” Furthermore, the judge said Exotic’s civil case could not be brought until his criminal appeal is heard. Exotic is in the middle of appealing his 22-year prison sentence for soliciting someone to kill rival Carole Baskin, as well as other animal cruelty offenses.
Exotic is accusing the defendants of conspiring together to have him falsely arrested. He claims that the defendants violated his civil rights, including due process, selective enforcement, discrimination, right to post pond, false imprisonment, false arrest, perjury, and entrapment, according to the lawsuit.
