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Comedian Carlos Mencia was arrested on Thursday and charged with failing to report or pay taxes on more than $8 million in earnings, according to Los Angeles County prosecutors. District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges at a news conference, labeling the 58-year-old stand-up comic "one of California’s biggest tax scofflaws."
Mencia faces 12 felony counts in total, including six counts of failure to file personal income tax with intent to evade taxes for the years 2019 to 2024, and six corresponding corporate tax counts.
Mencia owes more than $300,000 in state taxes on income totaling $8.7 million, Hochman said. He has not entered a plea.
Mencia was arrested at his Los Angeles home at about 7 a.m., authorities said. He remained in custody Thursday afternoon and was being held on $250,000 bail. He is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday.
If he’s convicted of all counts he could get more than 11 years in prison, along with paying the tax bills and interest that will almost double the total.
The charges are the first filed under the new district attorney’s new Business Tax Fraud Unit that was established in May by Hochman, a former longtime prosecutor of tax cases.
Mencia regularly paid taxes before 2019, Hochman said. He was sent 78 notices from the state about his delinquent bills, with no response. The charges deal only with state taxes. Hochman said the IRS has not informed his office of Mencia’s federal tax status.
Born Ned Arnel Holness in Honduras and raised in East Los Angeles, Mencia began doing stand-up in LA clubs in the late 1980s. By the early 2000s, he became one of the most popular comics in the U.S. and also did some acting in film and television.
He had his own TV series, “Mind of Mencia,” combining stand-up with sketches on Comedy Central from 2005 to 2008.
Hochman pointed out at the news conference that on the show in 2007, Mencia said, “Maybe I’m different, but I think taxes are a good thing.”
