While there was a time when these stars were at the top of their game in TV, music, politics,
or sports, even just one bad decision flipped the tables for these stars, who are now facing
the music behind bars.
These are famous faces you forgot were in jail right now.
Joe Giudice
In October 2014, People reported The Real Housewives of New Jersey stars Joe and Teresa
Giudice were sentenced to prison for various counts of mail, wire, and bankruptcy fraud.
While Teresa has since completed her stint behind bars, Joe is currently serving his
41-month sentence.
He began his prison term at New Jersey's Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in March
2016.
His brother-in-law, Joe Gorga, told Extra:
"Yeah, Joe's doing good, you know, he's doing his thing, and he's working out a lot, looking
great."
Teresa also updated fans, saying her hubby is slimming down behind bars and had lost
nearly 45 pounds as of January 2018.
She told People,
"He's very in shape.
He works out.
Not that he never worked out before, but it was all that alcohol he was drinking and whatever.
He's in tip-top shape now."
Physique aside, though, Joe faces another legal challenge upon his release from prison:
deportation.
Though his defense team appealed a judge's October 2018 decision to expel the reality
star from the U.S., as of early 2019, it's still unclear whether he will return to his
New Jersey digs or his home country of Italy.
"I mean, yeah, I mean, there's a chance of anything happening.
You know what I mean, there's nothing in life that, you know, is certain"
A source told E! News that if the latter becomes a reality, Teresa and Joe may be going their
separate ways.
Apollo Nida
Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks' estranged husband, Apollo Nida, is serving
an eight-year sentence on mail, wire, and bank fraud charges, according to People.
Nida originally faced upwards of 30 years, but his sentence was reportedly lessened due
to his cooperation with investigators.
"Get in and get out."
"Right."
"That's my thing, I'm ready to get out."
But Nida's time in prison hasn't been all terrible.
He divorced Parks but found a new woman to shower with love.
Per Us Weekly, he's engaged to marry Sherien Almufti, who made an appearance on the Fall
2016 season of Housewives.
The tab claims they were friends before things turned romantic, and she reportedly visits
Nida in prison on weekends.
Sam Hurd
Former pro-football star Sam Hurd could have been one of the league's most prized and respected
players, but instead, he's serving 15 years behind bars for his role in a drug-distribution
hustle, according to USA Today.
"Everyone at the Bears say good guy, great guy, quoting the Bible, great guy to be around.
Obviously he was conning them if he was involved in this, and he led a double life."
Hurd was rounded up during a sting at a Chicago steakhouse, after he reportedly chatted up
an undercover cop and attempted to buy 5 to 10 kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of
marijuana to distribute on the streets.
Hurd told the court,
"I regret not thinking about the consequences.
I made some dumb, very bad decisions."
In 2015, ABC reported Hurd filed a motion to have his sentence reduced from 15 years
to nine.
He stated he was rehabilitated, had completed both typing and business classes while behind
bars, and even learned how to attend to basic sports injuries.
But his request was denied.
Phil Spector
Music producer Phil Spector will possibly spend the rest of his life behind bars for
the death of actress Lana Clarkson, according to CNN.
In 2003, Clarkson was discovered dead, sitting in a chair, in Spector's home.
She'd been shot in the mouth.
Spector's first trial ended in a mistrial with a hung jury, but the second time around,
jurors reportedly deliberated for just 30 hours.
Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life behind bars for the killing of Lana Clarkson.
Oscar Pistorius
South Africa's Oscar Pistorius became one of the world's most renowned athletes when
he sprinted in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as a double amputee.
But he made headlines of a very different sort the following year.
In the early hours of February 14th, 2013, he reportedly fired four shots into a closed
bathroom door, killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
According to CNN, Pistorius said he thought an intruder was in his home, but the prosecution
claimed he killed Steenkamp after an argument.
Pistorius was convicted of manslaughter in 2014 and sentenced to five years in prison.
He served one year and was then put on house arrest, but his conviction was overturned
and upgraded to a more serious charge by a higher court in 2015, according to CNN.
"The verdict was unanimous and unexpected.
South Africa's supreme court calling Pistorius' original jail sentence inappropriate and raising
it."
In November 2017, his sentence was increased to 13 years and five months by The Supreme
Court of Appeal.
In March 2018, Pistorius ran out of appeals.
Rod Blagojevich
Politics is a dirty game.
Just ask former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted of abusing his power in
2011 and was sentenced to 14 years behind bars.
"Maybe one of the lessons to this whole story is that you gotta be maybe a little bit more
humble."
The governor was accused of trying to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat after Obama
won the 2008 presidential election, as reported by the Chicago Tribune.
In 2016, after serving just six years of his sentence, Blagojevich tried and failed to
get the remaining years knocked off.
"It's hard to even hope that our deal might be ending soon."
Blagojevich's luck changed dramatically when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
Maybe it was because Rod starred on The Apprentice in 2010, but after Trump openly pondered a
pardon for the disgraced governor, Blagojevich filed a formal request with the Department
of Justice, seeking a commutation of his sentence, according to USA Today.
As of early 2019, there's been no movement on the request, however, even with Trump dismissing
Blagojevich's crimes, and saying,
"Plenty of other politicians have said a lot worse.
He shouldn't have been put in jail."
Anthony Weiner
Disgraced politician Anthony Weiner's political career fell apart after he was found to have
been sending intimate texts to multiple women, one of which was a minor, using multiple aliases,
including "Carlos Danger."
"I have said that other texts and photos were likely to come out, and today they have.
As I've said in the past, these things that I did were wrong."
After his wife, noted political advisor to Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, left him in
May 2017, Weiner began a 21-month sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Massachusetts
in early November of that year.
According to Page Six, Weiner told the court at his sentencing,
"I was a very sick man for a very long time, but I'm also responsible for the damage I
have done … I have a disease, but I have no excuse."
NBC reported in late 2018 that Weiner is scheduled to be released in May 2019, three months shy
of his full sentence.
Joseph Son
Joseph Son is most famous for his role in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
as Random Task.
But in real life, however, Son's evil deeds were no laughing matter.
"And you said that you were an actor, what do you do with acting?"
"Um, I do comedy."
"Okay."
"Play bad guys sometimes."
In 2011, he was convicted of participating in the gang assault and torture of a woman that
he and an accomplice reportedly kidnapped and assaulted in 1990.
"I was kidnapped, I was tortured, and I was left for dead."
According to the Daily Beast, DNA evidence from an unrelated case in 2008 linked Son
to the heinous crime, for which he was sentenced to "life with the possibility of parole."
One month after starting his sentence, Son, who is also a former MMA-fighter, beat his
cellmate to death.
According to Bakersfield.com, after a jury found Son guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary
manslaughter, slapping the former actor with an additional sentence of 27 years, the judge
told Son,
"That crime is as monstrous and despicable as anything this court has ever seen."
Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver
Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver is an ex-MMA fighter who legally changed his name to War Machine.
"Speak my mind, and I do a lot of impulsive things.
But it's gotten me in some trouble.
Cost me some money, I'm tryin' to really really really think before I act."
In 2017, he was sentenced to 36-years-to-life for the brutal 2014 assault of his ex-girlfriend,
adult entertainer Christy Mack, and her male friend, Corey Thomas.
According to CBS Sports, the former fighter avoided conviction for the alleged attempted
killing but was found guilty of "29 of 34 charges for kidnapping, battery, and assault"
in the attack that "left Mack with a punctured lung and several broken bones."
At his 2017 sentencing, per ESPN, Koppenhaver expressed remorse for his crimes and claimed
to have found God while in prison, saying,
"Not a day goes by that I don't seriously regret all those things that I did."
Mack also spoke at the sentencing, with a very different perspective, telling the judge,
"When he gets out, he will kill me."
According to ESPN, Koppenhaver will be eligible for parole when he is 71 years old.
But he seems to have found a bright spot, behind bars: TMZ reported that prison-bound
Koppenhaver got engaged to a pen pal turned fiancée, Ashley Farrington, in 2018.
Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby was once considered America's dad.
"He was a great role model, a great father, a great husband, a great entertainer."
But in April 2018, the face of Jell-O was convicted of drugging and assaulting a Temple
University women's basketball administrator in his home 14 years prior.
According to Business Insider, Cosby was originally hoping for house arrest.
The octogenarian is legally blind and his lawyers claimed he was "too old and vulnerable"
to to do hard time.
Nonetheless, in September 2018, the former sitcom star was sentenced to three to 10 years
in a maximum security prison.
According to The New York Times, Cosby is living the life of luxury, at least the type
of luxury afforded in a maximum security prison.
His new $400 million, barbed wire-enclosed home is the brand new, state-of-the-art S.C.I.
Phoenix facility in Pennsylvania.
And apparently, he's even making some friends in the slammer.
According to Dallas Weekly, Cosby is quote "so concerned with the high obesity rate"
that he's coaching his fellow inmates, and even some of the officers, about health and
nutrition.
S.C.I.
Phoenix apparently has even already served Cosby Jell-O. Perhaps the former spokesperson
could convince them to choose something a little healthier.
Redmond O'Neal
Having famous parents isn't easy, and that's exactly what Redmond O'Neal is blaming for
the list of charges that landed him in jail.
According to People, actress Farrah Fawcett and actor Ryan O'Neal's troubled son was hit
with numerous charges, ranging from drug possession to "assault with a deadly weapon," after an
alleged violent crime spree in May 2018 left two victims severely injured.
So, why would a man with a $4.5 million inheritance allegedly rob a convenience store?
It's apparently got nothing to do with the drug addiction that's long afflicted the voice
actor.
He told Radar Online,
"It's the psychological trauma of my entire life, my whole life experiences have affected
me the most.
Fighting with my father, being kicked out and living on the streets, going to jail,
being put in a psychiatric ward, being embarrassed all the time, just because of who my parents
are.
The pressure that came with that set off a time-bomb in my head.
I never asked for any of this, I never wanted any attention."
Currently, Redmond is awaiting trial.
In the meantime, according to Radar Online, the star has allegedly refused to take his
medication and spends his time in jail, quote, "talking to himself, often loudly yelling."
Per the tab, in December 2018, a psychologist found him competent to stand trial, where
he'll face a whopping 20 years behind bars.
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