Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as “Joe Exotic,” shuffled into federal court in Oklahoma City on Wednesday for sentencing, his hands and feet shackled. He wore an orange prison jumpsuit. Until his arrest in September 2018, he’d run one of the largest tiger breeding and cub-petting and photo op attractions in the U.S., sometimes putting on shows dressed as a Las Vegas-style performer.

But the man once hailed as “The Tiger King” was now subdued, haggard. There was no trace of the confident, effusive showman I’d observed during his seven-day trial last spring. On April 2, a jury convicted him on two counts of murder-for-hire and 17 wildlife charges, which we’d reported as part of a larger story examining why