10 celebrities who ended up behind bars
Just because you have fame and fortune, doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply. Plenty of celebrities have fallen foul of the law over the years for numerous reasons.
Here are 10 celebrities who have ended up behind bars:
1. OJ Simpson
Orenthal James "O.J." Simpson was a running back in American Football but was better known for what he did off the field. In 1994, Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend, Ronald Goldman were murdered in Brown's home. Simpson was charged with their murder and a year later went on trial in what was dubbed "the trial of the century". He was acquitted but a civil jury in 1997 found him liable for the wrongful death and battery of the pair and he was ordered to pay $33,5 million in damages to the Goldman family. In 2007 Simpson was caught stealing sports memorabilia at gunpoint. He was found guilty of numerous felonies, including armed robbery and kidnapping, and sentenced to 33 years' jail with a minimum of nine years without parole.
2. Phil Spector
Phil Spector was a music producer who created the "wall of sound" production method. He worked with artists such as John Lennon and Tina Turner but it was his involvement with small-time actress Lana Clarkson, which he was now known for. When she was found dead at his California mansion in February 2003, he claimed she had committed suicide. But evidence and testimony indicated Spector himself had killed Clarkson. After two trials, Spector was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2009 and jailed from 19 years to life.
3. Tim Allen
Before his success as Tim Taylor on Home Improvement and voicing Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story trilogy, Tim Allen was a struggling comedian and part-time drug dealer. In 1978 he was arrested with more than 600 grams of cocaine in his possession. He was reported to be part of a drug trafficking operation with nearly 20 other dealers. He was sentenced to only three to seven years jail because he pleaded guilty and co-operated with the officials by giving up names of other dealers.
4. Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur
In the early 90s both the heavyweight boxer and gangsta rapper were at the peak of their powers. They were also very good friends and moved in the same circles. But both were to be convicted of sexual assault or rape. Tyson was convicted of the 1991 rape of Miss Black Rhode Island winner Desiree Washington and served three years of a six-year jail sentence. Shakur clearly did not learn the lesson of his friend and was convicted of a 1993 sexual assault of a woman. He was released after serving about a year of his sentence before being fatally shot after attending one of Tyson's fights in 1996.
5. James Brown
Although he appeared happy and smiley when he performed, the Godfather of Soul had a dark side to him. He had many brushes with the law and went to prison several times. The first was as a 16-year-old when he was convicted of armed robbery and served three years in juvenile prison. In 1988, Brown was arrested twice, first in May on drugs and weapons charges, and then in September following an alleged high-speed car chase. He was convicted of carrying an unlicensed pistol and assaulting a police officer, along with various drug-related and driving offences. He served three years of a six-year sentence. He also beat his partners. His third wife had him arrested four times for domestic abuse, while Tomi Rae Hynie accused him of punching her to the floor in 2004, a charge to which he plead no contest.
6. Chris Brown
Brown gets into trouble for punching people. In 2009 he pleaded guilty to felony assault on his then-girlfriend Rihanna, but escaped with probation. Last week he was sentenced to one year in prison for felony assault of a man in 2013. He has already served two-thirds of a year in rehab and custody, so was expected to be released soon.
7. Mark Wahlberg
Before he became a Hollywood star, Wahlberg was a rapper known as Marky Mark. This alter ego was not a good guy. At 16, Wahlberg approached a middle-aged Vietnamese man on the street and attacked him with a wooden stick while yelling racial remarks. That same day, he also attacked another Vietnamese man, leaving the victim permanently blind in one eye. For those crimes, Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to assault, and was sentenced to two years in a state prison. Five years later he fractured the jaw of a neighbour in an apparent unprovoked attack. Commenting in 2006 on his past crimes, Wahlberg said: "I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes."
8. Robert Downey Jr
The Iron Man star has not always been so clean-cut and for a long time was known as the biggest wasted talent in Hollywood. Addicted to drugs, he was in and out of jail in the late 1990s for a string of drug-related offences. He spent six months in prison in 1997 and was sentenced to three years of rehab in 1999, of which he served 12 months. He once told a judge: "Taking drugs to me is like having a shotgun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger - and I like the taste of the gunmetal."
9. Martha Stewart
The television homemaker and businesswoman found herself on the wrong side of the law in 2001 for insider trading. She sold her stake in a company called ImClone Systems based on nonpublic information, the day before the shares dropped by 16 per cent. She then lied to investigators about what she knew and was found guilty in March 2004 of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators. She was sentenced to a five-month term in a federal correctional facility.
10. Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton
These two can get lumped in together because their prison sentences could hardly be considered "hard time" and can mainly be attributed to idiocy. Lohan was jailed in 2010 for drink-driving and has returned to either jail or rehab a few times since. In 2007, Hilton was sentenced to 45 days in a county jail for violating her probation, a probation she had been on for drink-driving. Amanda Bynes also gets an honourable mention here, although she escaped jail time this year, in relation to a 2012 drink-driving charges.
Republished with permission of Stuff.co.nz.