Sheriff Responds to Carole Baskin's Claim Don Lewis Has Been Found Alive
Tiger King star Carole Baskin stands by her claim that her long-assumed dead ex-husband Don Lewis is actually alive, but law enforcement doesn't back her up. The animal rights activist claimed in a recently-resurfaced 2021 interview from the British ITV show This Morning that she learned Lewis is alive and living in Costa Rica due to a letter from the Department of Homeland Security and a special agent who spoke with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in 2002, the same year Lewis was legally declared dead.
"They said my husband, Don Lewis, is alive and well in Costa Rica. And yet all of this hay has been made about me having something to do with his disappearance when Homeland Security has known where he is at least since back then," the 61-year-old said at the time,
However, in a statement to The New York Post, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said that he is still listed as a missing endangered adult who on Aug. 18, 1997, "left his families [sic] residence and has not been seen or heard from since." The statement continued, "We have not received any communication from our federal partners that confirms the location of missing person Mr. Don Lewis. The investigation into Don Lewis' disappearance remains a priority for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, as do all missing person cases."
The whereabouts of Baskin's husband were touched upon in Season 1 of the Netflix docuseries Tiger King and became the central focus of the series' second season. Following the Season 2 premiere, Baskin filed a lawsuit against Netflix and Royal Goode Productions, LLC, for using footage of her that she claimed violated her contract as a Florida judge denied her motion for a temporary restraining order that would have prevented the streamer and production company from featuring footage of her, her husband Howard Baskin and their Big Cat Rescue sanctuary.
The judge ruled that the Baskins "are not entitled to the extraordinary remedy of a temporary restraining order, which would be entered before Defendants have had an adequate opportunity to respond," according to court documents. Howard said in a statement to PEOPLE at the time, "While we cannot stop Netflix and Royal Goode Productions from producing low-brow, salacious and sensational programming, we do believe that we have the right to control footage filmed of us under false pretenses. We like to believe that most Americans will agree that we should be entitled to protect our reputations in this manner and hold entertainment giants to their word," the statement concluded.