Supreme Court declines to hear 'Tiger King' Joe Exotic's challenge after murder-for-hire conviction

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, commonly known as Joe Exotic, a pop culture icon from Netflix's "Tiger King" documentary on Monday. The case stems from his conviction for a murder-for-hire plot.

Maldonado-Passage lost his last appeal before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July.

"I lost my appeal for a new trial today. The United States Government wants me to die in prison even though they know their witnesses were lying under Oath," he wrote in a post on X at the time. "In fact, their witnesses all admitted to perjury on world television on season 2 of Tiger King."

He followed up the statement with a request for a pardon from Trump.

"Make this right and allow me to go home," he wrote. "8 years of my life I have lost."

He sought a retrial in 2023, claiming new evidence had come forward and that witnesses had recanted their testimonies. That effort failed at the district level when U.S. District Judge Scott Palk noted that Maldonado-Passage's own words had served as "the most credible and damning evidence" against him.

"From the very day we met, we've spent every minute of every day together," he said. "And it just clicked so fast and so sincere, and it's amazing.

"I wished I would have met Jorge months ago or a couple of years ago, but God had a plan, I guess."