Tiger King (2020) s01e04 Episode Script

I wake up, I go to work ♪
But every day I get someone
Trying to slam me down ♪
Back in the dirt ♪
I don't care
I move on ♪
So bring on the media
To the driveway ♪
[Joe] I use my music
as an escape from reality.
This is what I do right here,
drive around and listen to myself singing.
This old town is where I wanna be ♪
Is where I'm gonna be ♪
I moved up here
And I took a chance, yeah ♪
Started my own brother's dream ♪
Ain't much left here now ♪
Just some beat-up buildings
And a place to dream ♪
They still haunt me ♪
In this old town ♪
[operator] This is a prepaid call from
[Joe] Joe Exotic.
[operator]
an inmate at the Grady County Jail.
[Joe] Me and Carole
made money off of each other.
We became popular off of each other
because I was her
number one most wanted cub abuser
that she could make money off of,
and she was my number one
murdered-her-husband
and-fed-him-to-the-tigers-and
crazy bitch out there
that I could make music videos
and shit about.
[man] All right,
we're gonna get Joe in there now.
Oh, okay.
God, this stinks! Hurry up!
Come on, over here.
[Joe]
If you don't think she's not making money
off of me being in jail right now,
you're crazier than shit.
Howard, this entire row of files
is all dedicated to Joe.
Actually
this file cabinet
this is the current legal stuff
and this one down here.
[Kirkham] Tilt up a bit, Michael.
We'll put it right there.
Joe, let's have one right at this camera.
- Come here.
- You got stills, Michael?
Oh, it's a still camera?
Somebody get my
[cubs mewling]
[man] Wow, one with the mouth open
and everything.
[Reinke] The more Joe got aware
of social media and how it worked,
the more he realized that he needed
to work the name.
Like, when you Google "big cat rescue,"
it pulls up Big Cat Rescue
in Tampa, Florida.
Do you know the power you have
if you search Google around the world,
and you're the first choice every time?
Hey, all you cool cats and kittens,
it's Carole at Big Cat Rescue
[Antle] She is the one.
She's the first choice every time,
supersedes all the zoos.
She's at the top of all search.
Most of the cats ate well today.
Nat was a champ
and so was Frosty, the serval,
except for no poop from Frosty.
[Reinke] Joe started realizing that if he
made his name close to Big Cat Rescue,
when they Google it,
it might pull him up first.
[Howard] Joe decided
that the way he would get back at us
was to rename his traveling show
"Big Cat Rescue Entertainment."
He did that as a ploy to help
his, uh, ratings on the Internet.
[Goode] Where did you get the name?
Where'd you get the idea?
Big Cat Rescue Entertainment?
I mean, we're the biggest center
in the United States
who are rescuing big cats.
Uh, and we entertain people, okay?
Here's our logo, all right?
And here is what he started using.
Notice that the "Entertainment" below
is a bit faded,
so you don't even see it.
The snow leopard eyes was, at that time,
the masthead on our website,
so he was copying that.
I don't want to say
it's all the way similar,
but, I mean, it definitely looked like it.
Here, he was handing out a business card
that said, "Florida office",
and had our area code and number
that forwarded to him.
Yeah, he come up with a Florida address
and a Florida phone number
to help ping all that stuff together.
And it worked.
People were contacting us and saying,
"Hey, I didn't think you did
this sort of thing."
Oh, that definitely pissed her off.
And then it just got worse.
We couldn't sue him over the cub petting.
We didn't have standing to do that.
But we could sue him
for violating our copyright.
[man] We are now on the record
in the matter of Big Cat Rescue Corp.
versus Big Cat Rescue Entertainment.
This is the videotape deposition of Joe
uh, "Shreeb-uh-vogel"?
- Schreibvogel.
- Okay.
Honestly, I thought it would end there.
I thought he would look at that
and be smart enough to say,
"You know what?
I don't want the expense of a lawsuit.
I'll just stop using their name."
He continued to use the name,
and he filed counter claims
to drag this out.
We built a website, 911AnimalAbuse.org.
We put a reward out for information
leading to who killed Don
or where Don's remains are.
[man] Why did you set that up?
Why did I set that up?
To start posting the truth
about Carole Baskin for a change.
Is Don really under the septic tank?
We tried to expose the fact
that she is scamming the public.
I'm gonna stay on your ass so hard
that you're gonna end up in jail for fraud
before this is over with.
Why did it take $47,652
to put on your Fur Ball
to only raise $45,000?
[Howard] This is just not true.
I don't think Joe considers lying to be
a question of ethics.
I think he would consider it
to be an art form.
It was like the Hatfield and McCoy.
They go at each other.
"Oh, you did this!" "Well, you did that!"
"I got this!" "I got that!"
It's just a crazy little comedy
between exotic animal owners.
[chuckles]
She even got your big daddy cigar,
looky there.
Oh, that's getting the phone to ringing.
[Kirkham] Joe Exotic was
everything I had dreamed of
in finding a reality show.
- This morning we're shooting
- publicity stills
for Joe Exotic Tiger King,
the reality show
in order to get the stills
that we need to send out
to the news media
and everything else worldwide
for the first episode of the show.
And how should we set this thing up then,
knowing our poor angles
[Reinke] Rick Kirkham, he came to the zoo
as a producer for Joe's reality show.
Joe had been trying,
and nobody could get it kicked off.
Rick Kirkham promised him
he could get it done.
Doing his little Internet shows
was only my way of getting into the zoo,
because I had a camera crew shooting
a reality show
behind the crews shooting
his Internet show.
I could give a crap
about his Internet show.
But that was the deal.
He signed the contract.
"I'll let you shoot a reality show
if you'll go ahead and run my studio."
Okay, people, stand by.
Fifteen seconds till showtime.
- Stand by, video one.
- Video one is queued!
Let's get Joe on the set.
- Teleprompter
- [Kirkham] It worked out good for me.
I was like, "Hell yeah, I'm gonna make
a million dollars off this reality show.
I'll do your little piddly-ass
internet show."
This is Joe Exotic's episode
of "Eaten Alive."
Discovery Channel, here I come!
[Reinke] I mean, it was a passion of his
to do a reality show.
You know, gay man, owning a zoo,
toting a gun.
He said it'll sell, for sure.
Hey, I'm Joe Exotic,
otherwise known as The Tiger King.
The gay, gun-carrying redneck
with a mullet.
He was like a mythical character living
out in the middle of Bumfuck, Oklahoma,
and owned 1,200 tigers and lions
and bears and monkeys and shit.
We're shooting the reality show
in segments.
In this morning's segment,
we would go into Joe's bedroom,
get the alarm going off, Joe waking up
There was something so odd
about the man,
and yet, he had so much confidence
because he owned the world in his head.
[man] Got you.
All right, keep rolling, keep rolling.
Now this is the kind of movies
we're gonna make here, okay?
- [gunshot]
- [Joe] Whoo! [laughs]
[indistinct speech through walkie-talkie]
[men laughing, grunting]
I'd settled on a title
of Joe Exotic, Tiger King
for the reality show.
That's fucking heavy.
I said, "Here's what I wanna do, Joe.
I'm gonna build a king's throne.
Big, solid wood, red velvet,
the whole works,
and I'm gonna put it in
the middle of a big tiger cage
with all these tigers around you."
And he's like, "Oh Okay! I like that!"
He wanted to be famous
more than he wanted anything else in life.
Man, when he saw that footage,
he went wild.
He’s like, "I am the Tiger King!
I've always been the Tiger King!"
You can go in there and go into
the gift shop into his office
at eight, nine o'clock at night,
and hear this
[hums fanfare]
and you go around,
and he was sitting there,
playing this shot over and over
of him in this throne.
[Kirkham] Joe's ego was so big.
Can you give me my whip?
[Kirkham] Way too big for his little body.
Look into my eyes. No [chuckles]
[Kirkham] He would have done anything
to become famous.
I watched him fire people
just because he knew
the camera was rolling.
[Joe]problem with that?
[Kirkham] Having the cameras run
on the morning meetings set Joe off.
It was like lighting a firecracker.
[Joe] And if you think it's funny,
you can pack
your shit and go right now!
- I like
- Because the disrespect around this place
is ending today!
You're the slacker,
and you do less than anybody here.
Ain't gonna work with me,
so you need to find a new job.
He started getting so crazy to where
he had a rubber blow-up doll,
and he would have "Carole"
written on a name tag on it,
and he would take a dildo
and be shoving it in her mouth.
"Carole, this is coming for you!
It's gonna catch up."
I mean, it got crazy. Got crazy.
She ain't going nowhere.
You wanna know why
Carole Baskin better never, ever, ever
see me face-to-face
ever, ever, ever again?
[gunshot]
That is how sick
and tired of this shit I am.
And this picture that you see back here,
that's our sign-up front
with him posing in front of it
with bullet holes in it.
It's like, this guy is just
unbelievable.
We all tried to tell him,
"Knock it off, stupid."
Y'know, all you're doing
is asking for a battle that you don't
Even if you do win,
it's still gonna cost so much time,
so much money, so much everything.
Bow down, tell her to go fuck herself
and walk the fuck out.
But no, he didn't.
He became more obsessed with all that
than he actually
took care of the cats that he had.
I'm not trying to pat myself on the back
or anything, but I'm glad I was here.
And then the rabbit picture
showed up on Facebook.
I was given a picture via email
from a lady in Florida
of Big Cat Rescue's employees
bashing rabbits in the head
and posing
like they're some kind of trophies,
with big smiles on their face.
This is what I got sued over.
Does that look happy?
[man] Are you familiar with
one of your videos that you titled
"Carole Baskin Saga 39:
Killing Innocent Rabbits"?
Um
I remember doing 57 sagas
about Carole Baskin.
I don't, right in front of me,
have what Saga 39 was about.
But yes, I did some sagas
on Carole Baskin killing rabbits.
[Carole] It was back before we could
afford to give the whole prey to the cats
as frequently as we do now.
So, they're holding these rabbits
with blood on their noses,
and they're grinning from ear to ear
because their favorite cat's
finally getting a rabbit,
and yet, that has been twisted
into us being these horrific monsters
that would get pleasure out of
hurting a rabbit.
So, you know, that kind of stuff,
you're just like, "Ugh
really, do I have to explain this
to somebody?"
She sued me for copyright.
- [Goode] Well, what'd you do?
- I posted it all over Facebook.
This wasn't her photo, either.
After I posted it, she paid five dollars
for the person that took this photo,
and then, three months later,
she copyrighted it,
and then, she sued me.
The one lawsuit was about the rabbit photo
and the other lawsuit was about
a bunch of photos
where he would take a picture of Carole
and take her head
and put it on the body of a man
in a diaper.
This here's this picture
of this gooey thing
and it says "Smile everyone!
Life could be worse.
You could have a crotch like Carole does."
I believe they had just
slaughtered a horse,
and this is the horse's penis
that he's holding
and it says "Hey, Howard,
suck my Captain Morgan, LOL."
And by the way, that is a penis.
A horse penis.
That that was my recollection.
[Joe] We did a protest
in front of Carole's place.
[protester 1]
Big Cat Rescue kills its cats!
- [protester 2] Let's find Don Lewis.
- [protester 3] Find Don Lewis.
[Joe] Every person who drove by
hollered, "Murderer."
I don't even know
how you hold your head up
in a community that thinks
you killed your husband.
[man] And at the time
that you were handing out
these handouts with the photograph,
which is Exhibit 1,
this lawsuit was already pending, correct?
Mmm, yeah.
[man] And you were aware
that Big Cat Rescue
uh, did not approve of or authorize
your use of this photograph, correct?
Yeah, except I didn't make these.
[man] But you participated
in the demonstration
and handed them out, correct?
Yep. No, actually, I didn't hand them out.
I'm the one in the bunny suit.
[man] Third page, you're the bunny?
[woman] Put it on.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!
I'm Joe Exotic,
and we're gonna make an honest woman
out of this bitch.
- [protester laughing]
- That's my opening.
[protester] Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
[Howard] In early 2013,
we were coming up
to this trial in January,
and we had filed a motion
for summary judgment.
And the judge announced
that she was granting our motion
[gavel banging]
and his counterclaims were going away.
[reporter] Oklahoma's home for live,
local, late-breaking coverage!
[reporter 2] An Oklahoma man
who goes by the name Joe Exotic
has agreed to pay
a Florida animal sanctuary
nearly one million dollars to resolve
a trademark infringement lawsuit.
You know the saying
that you get your day in court?
Well, I don't feel
we got our day in court.
Dirty politics is what I call it.
She had to result
into financially draining us.
You know, I actually believed in
the justice system there for a while,
until this happened.
[woman] The million-dollar judgment,
you know, I just thought she did it
to make a point.
"Look, I'm not gonna back down.
You're not gonna intimidate me,
and you're not gonna have the final word."
I was surprised that she was actually
trying to collect payment.
Who has the millions
to spend that amount of time in court?
She did.
[Joe] She'll never get a million dollars
out of me. I don't own anything.
I don't own anything.
This bus is not mine.
Those cars are not mine.
I'm not stupid.
[laughs]
She wanted everything in assets.
From vehicles to four-wheelers
to everything.
She can take everything away from me.
I don't give a shit because she will never
shut this mouth up, all right?
Until the day I see her ass in prison.
Joe, he turned over what he had to.
'Cause a lot of it was possessions.
She took the semitruck,
and she took the tour bus,
which, in her opinion, was a win
because he couldn't do road shows anymore,
not without the equipment.
He had already spent
a quarter million dollars fighting her.
Carole had him by the balls,
and he hated her.
God, he hated her.
Did I hear you say you wanted
my fucking watch?
Really? My watch?
[Reinke] Any of the assets
that Carole wanted in the lawsuit,
he would take out there
and blow it up with Tannerite.
[loud explosion]
They tell me you want my goddamn bed too.
[explosion]
God damn.
[Reinke] He'd say,
"Here's your assets, come get 'em,"
- and it'd just be a pile of crap.
- [explosion]
He never stopped antagonizing her.
All I did constantly was:
"Roll the camera,
roll the camera, roll the camera,"
to get all that shit on tape.
And I had everything on videotape,
good, bad, and ugly.
I wanna make this show go.
I know how great
this reality show could be.
It's so unique.
I just gotta get it on network.
I've been living here on the zoo
and living and working,
and I'm here at the zoo 24/7.
I'm just tired. Very tired.
We were negotiating with a network
uh, to buy the show.
It would have netted him
quite a bit of money.
'Cause it's the only way
he was gonna pay that million dollars.
But it came to a crashing halt.
[man] Oh, shit.
[Cowie] Yeah, I got woked up
at six o'clock in the morning.
Reinke came in, and these motherfuckers
had blown up our, uh
the studio.
The blast was so big
that it blew the doors open.
Joe had gone to Chicago for a funeral,
and it was me and Reinke
on the park with the other crew,
and Reinke says, "I ain't touching nothing
till the fire department gets here.
I want it looked at."
That building,
where the alligators were kept,
as well as a studio that Joe had
it was clearly an arson.
It was a set fire.
[Kirkham] It had burned so hot,
there was nothing left.
I dropped to my knees and I cried.
I cried because all of our footage
was in that studio,
and I hadn't backed up anything
outside the studio.
[Joe] An arsonist hit our facility
and set fire to not only
my recording studio,
but the studio that houses our alligators,
which caused them all to burn up
and perish,
boiling alive in a
Let's see.
Boiling alive in an inferno,
a towering inferno?
Boiling alive in a towering inferno
of nothing but flames and fire.
[Finlay] For somebody to burn down
an alligator house,
they gotta be a pretty sick person.
Because they burned up
seven of my crocodilians.
If you have a problem with me,
take it up with me, like a man.
Don't burn live, innocent animals
to get your fucking point across.
We're not really liked
by the animal world, you know,
animal rights people hate us.
We get constant threats on the phone,
e-mails, letters.
We're offering a 10,000-dollar reward
for information leading to the arrest
and the conviction
of either this suspect
or the people that were involved.
If it is tied
to any animal rights organization,
we are going to double that reward.
Carole Baskin, crawl this fence
and try to hurt any of my animals again,
you can guaran-goddamn-tee
I'm gonna put a cap in your ass
the first time,
to make you squirm around on the ground.
And then I'mma put a bullet
right between your fucking eyes!
I'm waitin' for 'em
to catch Carole Baskin in this.
Because we got e-mails between her
and my producer.
She offered him $20,000.
[Goode] Wait, wait,
she offered who $20,000?
My producer.
[Goode] To do what?
[Joe] To get all the footage
and set fire to my studio.
I had sent Rick Kirkham a Facebook message
and I said,
"I think you probably don't know about
the person you're working for."
[Howard] Her intent was to warn him,
but we never made him any kind of offer
or asked him for anything.
I got him on videotape.
[Reinke] I swear that's Rick Kirkham
walking in front of the video
that morning that it burnt down.
I was, like, in shock.
I was like,
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
It was like, "That's my retirement
that just burned, okay?
I got everything invested in that project
that no longer exists."
As far as the footage,
I don't know who's got it.
I suspected Kirkham
of taking all of his material.
I was the one person Joe feared the most
because I was shooting everything
in his personal life
and could take what I saw and witnessed
and and harm him with it.
[Joe]
There was all kinds of shit on there.
Reinke doing veterinary work
without a veterinarian.
We had cameras
on everybody every minute of the day.
He could have sold it to Carole,
and Carole could be,
you know,
just saving it for a rainy day.
Fuck me, man!
A scenario was thrown at me:
do you think it could have been Joe?
Because when that happened
he was out of town for a funeral.
What better timing?
Nobody would have ever suspected him
of calling to have it burned down.
[Joe] All right.
Follow me. Don't ever
put that camera down in there.
- [Joe] Hi guys.
- [lawyer] What's happening?
What kind of problem is there, Joe?
A week before
the studio burned to the ground,
we had gotten into an argument,
and he was like,
"You know, I don't need you.
I can go on."
And I pulled out our contract.
I showed it to him.
I said, "Joe, when I came here,
not only do I own all the reality footage,
I own all of your Internet footage
from the time I came here
that I produced."
[Joe] My producers
are filming a reality show.
[lawyer] So they want to do a show
related to your park up there?
[Joe] They actually got it filmed.
- [lawyer] Do they?
- [Joe] Mm-hmm.
[lawyer]
And how are you protecting that?
[Joe] What do you mean?
[lawyer] Well, if they've got it filmed,
what do they need you for?
He blew up so bad
when I showed him that contract.
He was like, "You don't own me!"
I said, "Joe, actually I do right now.
I do own this show. I do own it."
- [lawyer] Where is the film?
- [Joe] In my recording studio.
- [lawyer] They don't have copies of it?
- [Joe] No.
Do you see what I'm saying, Joe?
- [Joe] I hear you.
- Just pisses me off, dude.
- [camera operator] I know.
I'll find somebody that needs ten grand.
Make a name for themselves.
[engine starts]
[Kirkham] After the studio burned,
whether he destroyed it or not,
it was gone.
I remember walking over
and handing the camera to Reinke,
and I just said, "I'm out of here, man."
And he said, "Yeah, might as well
go on home."
I got my dog.
I got in my truck.
I left everything I owned, and I drove,
and I left and went back to Dallas.
I had a complete nervous breakdown.
I was told by Joe and by Reinke,
"If you step foot on the park again,
we'll have you arrested for trespassing."
[Rhodes]
This fire happened at about the time
Joe had a judgment placed on him
from a lady in Florida.
Some of the items within this fire
were going to be under subpoena.
And that was some hard drives
and and some videotape
and thing like that,
and that might have been a motivation
to maybe destroy some evidence.
They might have shut me up
for just a little while,
but let me tell you,
they've awoken a monster.
Now Joe Exotic's pissed off.
Be sure and get online
and help us rebuild the voice
of you, the people,
to bring Joe Exotic TV back to the air.
Was it for the sympathy?
Was it for
the attention?
Oh, yeah.
[man]
Joe did take advantage of a lot of people.
That's why I think the fire
of the alligator habitat was a scam.
When I first met Joe,
we discussed what I would charge him
to rebuild at a decent rate.
I only charged him $8,000
to rebuild that $120,000 building.
[Goode] You didn't make any money.
- No.
- Why'd you do it?
For the animals.
I mean, I got to pet cats that people
wasn't even supposed to be
putting their hands in around.
[Joe] Five months ago,
an arsonist poured enough accelerant
in there
to where it completely exploded
the building
and burned the building
down to the ground.
I would like to thank the people
from all over the world
who don't even know us
that dug deep in their pockets
in order to rebuild this great
G.W. Exotic Animal Alligator Facility.
[applause]
Our investigation never did come
to anything definitive.
So, the case is still open.
Again, it's clearly an arson fire.
I got great news for you.
JoeExotic. TV returns to the air.
We're gonna expose the lies,
the corruption, and we are
[Howard] That building contained computers
that held information
that we were seeking.
I suspect that Joe was responsible
for having someone burn down the building,
but I have no firsthand knowledge,
and I can't prove it.
[Goode] How much has this cost you,
this lawsuit between you and Joe?
We've spent over a million dollars
in legal fees.
[Goode] You're kidding. Is it worth it?
Well, if this were a purely
commercial situation, it wouldn't.
You'd say this is not economic,
but this is part of our mission,
to put a stop to this.
And we're not going to allow him
to abuse the system
and wear us out and cause us to go away
and succeed at that.
[Corkill] You know,
if you've got the money
If you've got the money,
you usually find yourself
on the right side.
[Reinke] She's got deep pockets.
I don't know if she wants the facility,
or if she wants the facility shut down.
But any way you look at it,
she wants to take over the zoo.
[tiger huffs]
[Finlay] When Joe pretty much maxed out
all the credit cards
is when he asked me if I wanted
to put the zoo into my name,
and at the time,
it sounded like a good idea.
[Joe] I'm John Finlay,
and I'm president of the G.W. Zoo.
Three, two, one.
Hi, I'm John Finlay,
and I'm president of the G.W. Ex
[children laughing, chattering]
[Joe] G.W. Zoo. It's real simple.
Right on.
They've done so many transfers
and quick claim deeds, you can't
No one can keep track of it,
not even an attorney.
You can go down to the courthouse and ask.
If you just say
the last name Schreibvogel,
they just take a deep breath
and look at you.
Joe kept thinking if he changed the name,
it would just derail them and derail them.
Well, it didn't.
They just moved it to another lawsuit.
Carole Baskin's lawyers are vicious,
and they go after anybody involved.
She sued me also,
just 'cause I was at the zoo.
It was in the works that
I was going to be sued at the same time.
So, everybody that had been involved
all got drug into court.
[Saffery]
Joe's parents, Francis and Shirley
Their name,
Shirley's name is on everything.
The trailers, the water bill,
the electric bill,
the cable, you know, cable bills.
[Howard]
Through the proceedings about the land
and fraudulent transfer to his mother,
the bankruptcy trustee went after her.
[Joe] She sues my mom
for illegal transfer of assets.
Okay? Mom dumps
hundreds of thousands
of dollars into defending herself.
Instead of being in a tiger cage today,
I'm in a downtown area
of Oklahoma City.
Thanks to Carole Baskin for dragging us
all out of bed this morning
and sticking my mom at the very top
of that building right there
in order to fuck with her.
Using a federal court in order to do that.
Between the park and the lawsuit,
Mom ran out of money.
Carole bankrupted 'em.
Hello, good afternoon
to everybody in the nation.
I want to thank you with my whole heart
for all the support and help you have done
to get me and my husband out of the mess
we were in with this attorney.
They come banging on my door
with the sheriff
and demanding the whole sum of money
or else they were going to come in
and confiscate all the furniture
right then and there.
And I know from the bottom of my heart,
Carole Baskin down in Florida
is behind a lot of this
because she's been harassing us
right along with Joe
for years,
because she's so greedy,
and she's so jealous of what he has made
of his animal park
when hers is nothing.
[Putman]
It's "Mom, pay for this attorney."
That's every phone call.
"Mom, I need some money for this."
[Joe] Like 300-something.
I went down to the courthouse
and got a copy of one of the deeds,
and I said,
"Grandma, are you aware
that this happened?"
And she said, "Well, he shoved a paper
in front of me and told me to sign.
I didn't think anything of it."
Joe drained them dry.
I told Joe,
"How're you gonna make money?
"How are you gonna make money?"
He didn't have any other way to make money
other than cub petting.
So he had to breed.
[cub mewling]
[Joe] She's pushing another one out.
You need to be filming her ass.
See that cub come out
with that camera.
Zoom in on her ass.
[Johnson]
At that point, Joe was really desperate.
He was gonna lose the zoo.
Carole was gonna take it.
[Joe] She's panting hard.
I know she's panting hard,
but she's having a cub.
You'll see, watch her ass.
Get me a hole cut.
There's a towel in my car. Go get it!
[man] Careful. Careful.
[indistinct chatter]
[Joe] Everything's all right.
Everybody calm down. It'll be all right.
Just do
what you're supposed to do.
Female.
[cubs mewling]
[Joe] They just never stop screaming.
[mewling continues]
[Joe] I had to finally go sleep
in that studio yesterday.
It was the only way to muffle it.
It still costs 60,000 to 70,000 dollars
a month just to feed all these animals.
[tigers growling]
[man 1] You gonna let them in
or you gonna stand there?
[man 2] There's only 5 buckets of meat
in there and there's 14 cats in here.
[man 1] All we've got is
one barrel of meat right now.
That's all we've got.
So they all getting half buckets?
[Cowie] It's the Walmart meat trucks
have sucked lately.
We don't even have enough meat
to do the wolves. This is ridiculous.
- [tiger growls]
- Ah, no.
Maintenance. It's like putting a band-aid
on everything every day.
I don't even have bear buckets today.
I got one ham.
We got chicken coming, so
You can feed heavy.
[Reinke] Things got so bad,
we started negotiating with Carole
and Howard on how to get out of it.
[Joe] And that's when
I had mediation with Howard
to try and settle the bullshit,
you know, the lawsuit and everything.
[Howard]
The prospect of collecting
a million dollars from Joe
was not real high,
and I was willing to make concessions.
He pointed out
that his cash flow is very seasonal,
that he has few visitors in the winter.
What if we take these monthly payments
and make them lower in the winter
and bigger in the summer.
So, there were four
or five issues like that
that I was willing to accommodate.
We basically had a deal.
[Joe] Me and Howard
came to an agreement.
And then, he got Carole
on the phone. [laughs]
[continues laughing]
And Carole got greedy.
She wanted my mom and dad's house
as collateral.
That was a deal-breaker.
Carole Baskin,
you've already stripped me
of just about everything I own.
And you're gonna have to kill me
to shut me up
because I'm gonna die a hero
and I'm gonna liberate
the animal world.
It will be a cold day in hell
before you beat me.
God is in control.
So he'll either pull me through this or
he won't.
[Reinke] Jeff Lowe came on the scene
sometime in 2015.
He just brought the persona
that he was gonna save the zoo,
so we dubbed him "the Godfather."
[David] He says he's rich.
He's all about money.
It's money, money, money, money, money.
My introduction to Jeff Lowe was,
"Hey, Saff, this is our new investor."
[Reinke] He came to the zoo.
Talked with Joe mostly.
He would need someplace to put
14 of his own cats.
[man] My grandfather owned
It was called Robbins Brothers Circus.
It became the largest menagerie
of animals on Earth
with almost 100 elephants.
I mean, this guy was
He had a ton of animals,
and my first cats that I got were probably
at 16 or 17 years old.
Mountain lions and one tiger.
What can I get you? What can I
[Saffery]
Jeff was a businessman, for sure.
You can tell he's been through
the business world a few times.
[engine roaring]
[Reinke] He flashes a Ferrari around.
Rumor has it he has a jet.
He would float back and forth
from Vegas to Wynnewood a lot.
He liked the party life.
He liked the scene.
Up all night, Ecstasy, all that stuff.
I mean, that was just their style.
And that was a big attractant for him
because he's a swinger.
You know, him and Lauren swing.
They like to have sex with other women
at the same time.
They use the tigers to entice 'em in.
So, he took a few cubs out to Vegas.
[Goode] So those are like bait
to get girls?
Oh yeah, it's good bait to get girls.
Who doesn't want
to play with a baby tiger?
For, I guess,
like, a really beautiful woman
to get her picture with
a cute little dangerous animal,
it's like, "Oh, she's got a little spunk
in her, too!"
A little pussy gets you a lot of pussy.
There you go
Yeah. [laughs]
He put tiger cubs into, like,
a Louis Vuitton bag.
He rolled them through the casino,
up into the suites,
and then brought people up to have
play times with them and party with them.
[woman] Oh, she loves you, honey.
[Mazak]
Basically, that was their free ride.
[Saffery]
And girls came from everywhere.
[Mazak] He posted so many pictures
of him in bed with girls,
and Lauren in bed with girls,
and it's the cats, it's really the cats
that'll draw people in.
[Reinke] Joe says, "Y'all want more?
I'll give you more."
He's a playboy, and he's never denied it.
[plane approaching]
[Finlay Joe and Travis went out
to the mansion that Jeff Lowe had.
[Joe] Great big fucking mansion,
indoor swimming pool in the house
and everything.
Fucking crazy.
Sitting here with Jeff Lowe.
We have had a fun day. We went
He wines us and dines us,
and goes and spends all this money
on weed and everything else
for Travis and
It was awesome. It was awesome.
You know, I think he got up there,
and he was enamored by the big house
and fancy cars,
and he thought that,
"Here’s my next victim."
- [laughing]
- [man] What have you got?
[Joe] He had the money to fight Carole.
I want two or three of those roller carts
of hundred dollar bills
you had in your warehouse.
[laughs]
- We might be able to get you one.
- [laughs]
I saw, like, Joe bow down to Jeff.
And I didn't like that at all.
Joe was kind of secretive
about what was going on.
[Lowe] Hey, guys.
[woman] Welcome to free conference.
They had a call inside the office.
It was a conference call between Joe,
Howard Baskin, and the attorneys.
That was supposed to have been private,
all of us had to go outside the office.
But Jeff Lowe was actually in there,
and he was laying low during the call.
They thought they had Joe against
the ropes because he was broke.
Joe offered to pay them $5,000 a month.
They said, "Well, that isn't good enough."
She says, "We want $5,000 a month,
and you're gonna stop breeding,
and you're gonna stop cub petting."
And Joe says, "Well, how do you think
I can make the $5,000 a month to pay you,
if it's not through what I do?"
I just got sick of it, and I stepped up.
So this is all just a waste of time.
That settlement agreement
is so far from acceptable.
[lawyer] Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Who's speaking, please?
[Lowe] Jeff Lowe.
- [lawyer] We need you to get off the call.
- You know what?
When I woke up this morning
I was in a free fucking country!
And I'm still there.
[Howard] And the mediator said,
"If you won't get off the call,
we have to terminate the call,"
and Jeff said, "Well, then,
I just want to say"
[Lowe] Howard, fuck yourself,
and fuck your cunt wife.
"fuck Howard and his cunt wife."
With Jeff Lowe coming in to help him,
Joe believed that if he just
convinced us that he had
endless resources
to keep the lawsuit going,
we would suddenly fold our tent
and go away,
which, of course, we were not going to do.
He owed 40 or 50,000 dollars
to attorneys
that were ready to
stop defending him in his lawsuit
that he had with Carole Baskin.
[Joe] And they said,
"We'll make it 35 if you can pay that."
So, Jeff got a cashier's check
for $35,000.
And then my lawyers recommended
that we just dissolve the Garold Wayne
Interactive Zoo company
and let Jeff open one in his name,
so Carole would have to start the lawsuits
all over again.
So that's what we did.
- Here's another $10,000 reward
- Cash!
In cash. I'm not saying she did it.
I'm saying if you have information
that leads to her arrest,
not even conviction, just her arrest.
Wow.
[Goode] What do you know
about Jeff Lowe? Like what
Only allegedly, not my business.
[chuckles] Right?
I'm not gonna tell on camera
what's wrong with Jeff, so that one day,
this becomes a lawsuit.
You know?
- [Lowe speaking indistinctly]
- [Joe] When I met Jeff Lowe,
I thought I could trust him.
And, oh, my god, shit hit the fan.
I didn't know that mansion was rented.
I didn't know that he was behind
on Ferrari payments.
And as soon as he got the zoo
in his name,
the evil side of Jeff and Lauren came out.
[Lowe] Get out, Lauren.
[Lowe] No, get! Get!
- [camera operator] You all right?
- Fine.
[Goode] And tell me what happened
when Jeff Lowe got involved.
Jeff Lowe stole the zoo.
- Wait, say that again?
- Jeff Lowe stole the zoo.
[closing music theme]