Staff Reports
Tampa’s famous, or infamous, cat lady is fighting back against her step-daughters in a legal battle seeking information on their late-father’s death.
Carole Baskin, who became famous earlier this year after she was prominently featured in the hit Netflix documentary Tiger King, owns and operates Big Cat Rescue in Tampa.
Her husband, Don Lewis, went missing in 1997 and was declared legally dead in 2002. Tiger King speculated about her involvement in his death, claims Baskin denies.
Baskin is now asking a Hillsborough County judge to dismiss a petition from Lewis’ surviving daughters seeking discovery for documents and any other potential evidence suggesting wrongdoing by Baskin.
The petition, if successful, would help the daughters — Donna Pettis, Linda Sanchez and Gale Rathbone — file a future lawsuit, potentially for wrongful death against Baskin.
Lewis was a multi-millionaire leaving behind a substantial estate.
Baskin is asking a judge to dismiss their petition, arguing it amounts to a “fishing expedition” that demands “unfettered discovery.”
The lawsuit claims the daughters are barred by the statute of limitations and that their petition would “harass, annoy and oppress” her. Baskin also claims the list of complaints in the petition, filed in early August, is “entirely devoid of any facts.”
She argues that “until this court determines whether Plaintiffs have state a cause of action … no discovery should take place.”
Baskin’s petition comes as she is again in the national spotlight. A Wednesday post on the Big Cat Rescue Facebook page notes Baskin is joining the cast of Dancing with the Stars this season.
Baskin’s story and the mystery shrouding her husband’s disappearance were an internet sensation earlier this year just as Americans were confronted with sweeping quarantines amid the surging COVID-19 pandemic.
Tales of her roaming the streets of Tampa late at night made Baskin an overnight local celebrity.
The series created a near universal loathing, in a cult internet discussion about whether Baskin had killed her husband. The series included a music video by Joe Exotic, another big cat enthusiast and Baskin foe, in which he speculates Baskin fed her husband to tigers on her property.
