Comedian Carlos Mencia faces 12 felony charges for failing to report more than US$8M in earnings

Comedian Carlos Mencia. Image courtesy of @facebook.com/carlosmencia

LOS ANGELES — Comedian Carlos Mencia was arrested Thursday and charged with 12 felony charges for failing to report or pay taxes on more than US$8 million in earnings, prosecutors said.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges at a news conference where he called Mencia “one of California’s biggest tax scofflaws.”

The 58-year-old stand-up comic was charged with six felony counts of failure to file personal income tax with the intent to evade taxes — one each for the years 2019 to 2024 — and six similar counts for corporate taxes.

Mencia owes more than US$300,000 in state taxes on income totaling US$8.7 million, Hochman said.

He has not entered a plea, and emails sent to his attorney seeking comment was not immediately answered.

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 US$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.”

His comedy most often dealt with race, class and Latino culture. His career took a downward turn as he was hit with accusations from many fellow comedians of joke theft, which he always denied, from other comics. Joe Rogan, then best known as a stand-up comic, confronted him on a club stage on the issue in a video that went viral in 2007. Mencia had long discussions on Marc Maron’s podcast on the alleged plagiarism, acknowledging that he may have absorbed others’ material but denying outright theft.

He still does regular stand-up shows, touring clubs and small theaters. He’s scheduled to do a series of dates in Southern California this week and Las Vegas next week.

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press