Joe Exotic to make first appearance Thursday in Oklahoma federal courtroom

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — The tiger king of Oklahoma accused in a murder-for-hire plot will make an appearance in federal court Thursday.

Officials with the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma confirm that Joseph Maldonado-Passage, "Joe Exotic", will be arraigned at 3 p.m. Thursday.

Exotic wascharged with two counts of hiring a person to commit murderin early September and taken into custody in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Court documents allege he attempted to hire a person in November 2017 to murder an unnamed person in Florida. He then gave the person $3,000 to travel from Oklahoma to South Carolina and then Florida to carry out the murder. The unnamed person also traveled to Dallas to obtain a fake ID to use in the plot.

Exotic would then pay the unnamed person thousands more after the deed, according to documents. The individual traveled to South Carolina in November 2017.

A second indictment alleges that Exotic repeatedly asked another unnamed person to find someone to kill the same "Jane Doe" in Florida for money. Joe Exotic allegedly was put in contact and met with an undercover FBI agent in December 2017 to discuss the details of murdering the woman.

The woman was never injured. Exotic was arrested Sept. 7 in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Exotic was seeking to be the Libertarian candidate for governor in Oklahoma at the time of the alleged crimes. He failed to make the runoff election.