LOS ANGELES — Comedian Carlos Mencia was arrested Thursday and charged with 12 felony charges for failing to report or pay taxes on more than $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.”
He said the 58-year-old stand-up comic was charged with six felony counts for failing to report personal income from 2019 to 2024, and six more for corporate taxes for the same period.
Mencia owes more than $300,000 in state taxes on income totaling $8.7 million, Hochman said.
He has not entered a plea, and an email 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 $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 10 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 Business Tax Fraud Unit of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Mencia regularly paid taxes before 2019, Hochman said. He was sent 78 notices from the state about his delinquent bills, with no response.
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.
