The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Joseph Maldonado-Passage, the exotic animal breeder known as “Joe Exotic,” allowing his federal conviction and 21-year prison sentence to stand.

Maldonado-Passage, 63, was convicted in 2019 in Oklahoma on two counts related to separate murder-for-hire schemes targeting animal rights activist Carole Baskin, along with multiple wildlife offenses involving the illegal sale and killing of tigers and falsification of records. Prosecutors said the plots stemmed from an escalating personal and business feud between the two.

The case gained widespread national attention following the release of the 2020 Netflix series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, which chronicled Maldonado-Passage’s roadside zoo and his rivalry with Baskin, turning the case into a cultural phenomenon.

He was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit later ruled that the trial court improperly handled sentencing on the two murder-for-hire counts. A federal judge reduced the sentence to 21 years during a 2022 resentencing, where Maldonado-Passage requested leniency but was denied.

Court records show his latest appeal was filed after the 10th Circuit declined to revisit the case in 2025. The Supreme Court denied review without comment, consistent with its typical practice in most petitions.

Maldonado-Passage is currently serving his sentence at a federal medical facility in Fort Worth, Texas. His attorneys had argued that witness testimony was unreliable and that some actions involving animals were medically necessary, but those claims were rejected by lower courts.

With the Supreme Court declining to intervene, his conviction remains in place, closing another avenue of appeal in one of the country’s most widely publicized criminal cases.