*Comedian Carlos Mencia is scheduled to appear for arraignment Monday at the Van Nuys Courthouse* in personal and corporate income between 2019 and 2024.
Comedian Carlos Mencia faces arraignment Monday at the Van Nuys Courthouse on 12 felony tax evasion counts. Prosecutors allege he failed to report $8.7 million in income from 2019 to 2024. He remains in custody on $250,000 bail.
*Comedian Carlos Mencia is scheduled to appear for arraignment Monday at the Van Nuys Courthouse* in personal and corporate income between 2019 and 2024.
Mencia, 58, was arrested Thursday morning at his Encino home and remains in custody. Bail was set at $250,000. If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 11 years and four months in state prison.
The charges mark the first prosecution brought by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office new Business Tax Fraud Unit. The unit was created last month to target white-collar financial crimes.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges Thursday. He described Mencia as "one of California's biggest tax scofflaws."
"Mr. Mencia has an income most people can only dream of, and like everyone else he is required to file his personal and corporate tax returns and pay his fair share," Hochman said in a statement.
Hochman said Mencia received 78 demand notices from the California Franchise Tax Board during the period in question. None were responded to.
"Failing to report millions of dollars in income is a slap in the face to hardworking Californians who diligently file and pay their taxes every year because they care about their communities and the public goods, like police, fire, roads, and utilities, their tax dollars provide," Hochman said.
According to the district attorney's office, the 12 counts split evenly between personal and corporate tax failures:
Prosecutors allege the unreported income breaks down as approximately $3.3 million in personal income and roughly $5.4 million in corporate income. The corporate income was generated through Nedlos Entertainment, a company Mencia owns and serves as CEO.
The state of California is owed more than $300,000 in unpaid taxes, according to Hochman.
Mencia's arraignment is scheduled for Monday, June 22 in Department 100 of the Van Nuys Courthouse. He will face all 12 counts at that hearing.
Mencia regularly paid his taxes before 2019, Hochman noted. The alleged evasion covers tax years 2019 through 2024.
During his Comedy Central series Mind of Mencia, which ran from 2005 to 2008, Mencia publicly praised the tax system. Hochman highlighted the contradiction at Thursday's news conference.
"Maybe I'm different, but I think taxes are a good thing," Mencia said on the show in 2007.
Mencia was born in Honduras and raised in East Los Angeles. He began performing stand-up in Los Angeles clubs in the late 1980s. By the early 2000s, he was one of the most popular comedians in the United States. His film credits include voicing Felix Boulevardez on Disney's The Proud Family and appearing in The Heartbreak Kid.
His career faced scrutiny in 2007 after fellow comedians accused him of joke theft. The allegations were amplified when Joe Rogan confronted him on stage in a video that went viral. Mencia acknowledged on Marc Maron's podcast that he may have absorbed others' material but denied outright theft.
Mencia continues to perform stand-up. He was scheduled for a series of dates in Southern California this week and in Las Vegas next week, according to RadarOnline.
This article was generated with AI assistance.