15 Celebrities That Have Killed People
6) Paid His Way to Freedom: Vince Neil
He was young, rich and thought he could get away with anything. And in 1984, the Motley Crue singer basically got away with killing Nicholas Dingley, the drummer for the rock band Hanoi Rocks, and severely injuring two others in a horrific drunk driving wreck. The crash occurred when Neil crashed his car head-on into another vehicle in Redondo Beach, California. Neil’s passenger, Dingley, died almost instantly. The two young occupants of the other vehicle both suffered brain damage, while Neil suffered only minor injuries.
Investigators revealed that Neil, who was 23 years old at the time, had a .17 blood-alcohol count. At the time, the legal limit in Los Angeles was .10, and today, it is .08. Believe it or not, the singer — real name Vincent Neil Wharton — received only 30 days in jail for the accident, even though he could have received as much as four years and eight months. He did, however, end up paying $2.6 million in restitution to the victims in the crash as well as to Dingley’s family.
Even Neil believes he should have been given a longer sentence. In an interview with Blender Magazine, he said, “I should have gone to prison. I definitely deserved to go to prison. But I did 30 days in jail and got laid and drank beer because that’s the power of cash.”