'Tiger King' Joe Exotic got a year shaved off his sentence but was resentenced to 21 years in prison

• "Tiger King" star Joe Exotic has been resentenced to 21 years in prison over a murder-for-hire plot.
• The new prison sentence is one year less than Exotic's original punishment.

"Tiger King" star Joe Exotic has been resentenced to 21 years in prison over a murder-for-hire plot — one year less than his original punishment — after a federal appeals court ordered a new sentence.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was convicted in 2019 of plotting to kill his rival Carole Baskin, as well as of counts of animal cruelty. He was originally sentenced to 22 years in prison in January 2020.

A federal judge handed down the new sentence to the former zookeeper on Friday, the Associated Press reported.

"Please don't make me die in prison waiting for a chance to be free," Exotic, 58, pleaded to the judge during the court proceedings, the news outlet reported.

Last year, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that a lower court had made a mistake by not grouping both murder-for-hire convictions together. The court vacated Exotic's sentence and ordered a new one.

Prosecutors said Exotic tried to hire two people, including an undercover FBI agent, to kill Baskin.

"He continues to harbor intense feelings of ill will toward me," Baskin, who attended Friday's hearing with her husband, testified in court, the AP said.

The courtroom was filled with supporters of Exotic's. Some of them donned masks with animal prints on them, as well as shirts that read "Free Joe Exotic," the news outlet reported.

Exotic's attorneys said they planned to appeal the resentencing and would petition for a new trial, the AP reported.