Tiger King’s ‘Joe Exotic’ Loses Bid to Shorten Prison Sentence

Joseph Maldonado-Passage—better known as “Joe Exotic” after featuring in the Netflix documentary series “Tiger King"—lost his bid Friday to shave roughly 8.5 years off his 21-year prison sentence for trying to have a rival killed.

The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled against Maldonado-Passage, who previously won a one-year reduction when the appeals court found that the trial judge should have grouped his murder-for-hire plots together to determine his offense level under sentencing guidelines.

Maldonado-Passage, a controversial zookeeper who owned a large population of big cats, was convicted of wildlife crimes and twice hiring hitmen to kill ...