'Tiger King' Joe Exotic set for resentencing in Oklahoma

“Tiger King” Joe Exotic is headed to a federal courtroom Friday for a resentencing hearing

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A federal judge is set to decide a new sentence Friday for “Tiger King” Joe Exotic after an appeals court ruled last year that the prison term he's serving on a murder-for-hire conviction should be shortened.

Although supporters of Joe Exotic — whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage — are seeking his release from prison, it's unlikely because federal guidelines suggest a sentence of 17 1/2 years to 22 years in prison.

Maldonado-Passage was expected to attend Friday's sentencing in Oklahoma City after a judge approved his transfer from a federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina. Last month, attorneys for the former Oklahoma zookeeper said he was delaying prostate cancer treatment until after his resentencing.

The former zookeeper was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in prison after he was convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill animal welfare activist Carole Baskin. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Maldonado-Passage that the court should have treated them as one conviction at sentencing because they both involved the same goal of killing Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida and had criticized Maldonado-Passage's treatment of animals.