by Colleen Wilson
Thursday, February 10th 2022
OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — A flurry of motions has been filed in federal court in recent days on behalf of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic.
It comes just two weeks after Exotic was resentenced to 21 years in prison, one year less than his original sentence. Exotic has been in a federal facility after being convicted of a murder-for-hire plot and violations of the Endangered Species Act.
On Tuesday, John Phillips, Exotic's new attorney, filed two motions in US District Court for Western Oklahoma. Both are intended to set up a new trial for Exotic. In the first motion, Phillips asks to file an "oversized brief". Phillips wanted to file the brief for a motion for a new trial, but it was expected to be around 250 pages long.
"Post-conviction counsel conducted an extensive investigation into the case, wherein a large amount of new evidence was turned over, including but not limited to hundreds of recordings," the motion read.
Phillips said the 250 pages weren't "excessive" considering what they contained.
The same day, Phillips filed a motion to file a thumb drive with the courts instead of traditionally transcripts.
The thumb drive is said to contain video and audio recordings Phillips wishes to use for a new trial.
Phillips was expected to file a motion asking for a new trial on Thursday. As of press time, that motion had not been filed, but federal Judge Scott Palk did issue a response to Phillips requests made on Tuesday.
Judge Palk denied Phillips' request to file the oversized brief-- saying the limited description Phillips made of what's on the documents did not justify the "necessity of such an extraordinary number of excess pages."
"The Court will not grant Defendant's exceptional request based on the scant explanation in the Motion," Palk wrote.
Download the original 202-page motion here:
