On This Day in 1979, an Infamous Chuck Berry Rumor Led to a Jail Sentence

The negative consequences of a rumor can manifest in many ways, which Chuck Berry learned the hard way when a Los Angeles court handed down a jail sentence based largely on an infamous rumor about the rock pioneer’s payment preferences. The rumor that preceded him was beneficial in that it prevented venues from taking advantage of the Black performer.

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The trouble started when the IRS took notice.

How a Chuck Berry Rumor Led To a Jail Sentence

As one of the pioneering figures of rock ‘n’ roll and a Black man in a still highly segregated country, Chuck Berry learned to stand his ground with venues, colleagues, and other industry professionals. He would famously demand that promoters pay him upfront with a suitcase full of cash before he ever set foot on stage. If he didn’t get his cash ahead of time, then he didn’t perform. This no-nonsense rule preceded Berry wherever he went, and eventually, the IRS started to take notice.

In June 1979, a St. Louis Federal grand jury indicted the “Johnny B. Goode” singer on charges of tax evasion. Berry opted to go to trial in Los Angeles, California, instead of his Missouri hometown, and pleaded guilty to not paying almost $110,000 in income taxes. The California court sentenced Berry to several months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service, the latter of which Berry fulfilled by performing various benefit concerts.

Speaking later of the financial debacle, Berry said, “My philosophy of ‘as long as you know you have it why bother where it is’ was proving to be incompatible with reality.” And indeed it was. Berry served his four-month sentence at Lompoc Prison Camp in Santa Barbara County, California.

That Wasn’t The Rock ‘n’ Roller’s First Run-In With The Law

Chuck Berry’s legal trouble with the IRS wasn’t the first time he butted heads with the law, and it definitely wasn’t the last. As early as 1959, Berry received charges for violating the Mann Act when he brought a teenage prostitute across state lines from Texas to Missouri to check hats in his St. Louis nightclub. Berry said the young girl told him she was 21 years old at the time. In a later interview with the Los Angeles Times, Berry blamed racist backlash against his venue for the charges.

“[You could picture people saying], ‘Now, this is going too fast. Let’s shut the club down. In order to shut the club down, you have to [shut the owner down].’ That wasn’t the only thing that happened Getting me into jail from the Mann Act,” Berry recalled. “Many things happened. They made us paint the walls, fix the pipes…made us do all kinds of fire protection. But I knew why. I wasn’t wanted on Grand Avenue. I was the instigator.”

Less than a decade after his jail stint for tax evasion, Berry settled a $5 million lawsuit with a $250 fine for allegedly punching a woman in the face. In 1990, police raided Berry’s home and found 62 grams of marijuana and video footage of women using the restroom from a hidden camera in one of his restaurants. Because one of the people on video was a minor, Berry was facing possible child abuse charges. He got out of the charge by agreeing to plead guilty to marijuana possession. The court gave Berry a six-month suspended jail sentence, two years probation, and an order to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.

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