Well, it was a slow day in news for the Pittsburgh Steelers today. Then something extremely strange hit the internet.
The real Joe Exotic, Joseph Maldonado, posted a letter that he hand wrote from prison requesting that Ben Roethlisberger help get his stepson a signed Roethlisberger jersey.
The letter reads:
Hey Ben Roethlisberger,
Not sure if you have heard of me or not. It's Joe Exotic, the Tiger King. As you know, the United States of America has kidnapped me so Carole Baskin and PeTA could try to pass the Big Cat Safety Act because I'm the only one that could educate Congress about why this law should never pass. Anyway, they got my ass in prison for now and I need a favor from you please sir.
I have this amazing stepson named Johnny Graham and I promised him an autographed jersey by you because he thinks you are the shit and he holds you on a pretty big pedestal. There is one on eBay, but I don't have the $600 to buy it for his birthday. My fans helped get everything else he wanted. I'm just missing your jersey.
Can you help a man out that is fighting for his own freedom? Every kid needs a hero and you are his! If so, just private message and my people will go from there.
With all the respect,
Joe Graham "Joe Exotic"
With it came a photo of the hand written letter from prison.
I'm told by a source familiar with Roethlisberger that the letter was also emailed to his agent.
In case you've never heard of Joe Exotic here is some back-story on him. Story from here.
"Joseph Maldonado-Passage was sentenced Wednesday for the murder-for-hire plot and several wildlife violations.
A federal jury found Maldonado-Passage guilty in April of trying to hire someone to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin in November 2017, according to the US Attorney’s Office Western District of Oklahoma.
During trial, a jury heard evidence that he paid a man $3,000 to travel from Oklahoma to Florida to kill Baskin, with a promise to pay thousands more after she was dead, the court said.
Baskin, who was a vocal critic of Maldonado-Passage’s animal park, owns a tiger sanctuary in Florida and had secured a million-dollar judgment against him.
Maldonado-Passage had tried to find someone to kill her since July 2016, and had unknowingly met with an undercover FBI agent to discuss details of the planned murder, according to the court.
“Because of his constant threats to kill me, I have found myself seeing every bystander as a potential threat. There is no where that I have felt safe, and worse, no way that I feel I can safeguard those around me,” Baskin said in a statement. “So many of his threats involved blowing me up, so that he could thrill over seeing me burn to death.”
In addition to the murder-for-hire plot, he falsified forms involving the sale of wildlife in interstate commerce, killed five tigers in October 2017, and sold or offered to sell tiger cubs in interstate commerce.
While transporting animals, he designated on delivery forms and veterinary inspection certificates that they were being donated or transported for exhibition only, but they were instead being sold in interstate commerce, the court said. The animals involved included tigers, lemurs and lions.
“Because tigers are an endangered species, these alleged killings and sales violated the Endangered Species Act,” the court said.
The jury convicted him of two counts of murder-for-hire, eight counts of violating the Lacey Act for falsifying wildlife records, and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act, US Attorney Timothy J. Downing said.
“The self-described Tiger King was not above the law,” First Assistant US Attorney Robert J. Troester said."
