This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Legal
Accountant admits stealing $380,000 from Pearl Jam
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 24 December 2013
Pearl Jam’s former financial manager Rickey Goodrich is to be sentenced in February after admitting at King County Superior Court in Seattle last week to stealing from the band over the course of four years.
Goodrich joined Pearl Jam Touring Co in 2005 as accountant and financial manager, a year later moving to the group’s management company Curtis Management to oversee all financial matters relating to Pearl Jam’s touring activity and fan club. He was fired in September 2010, after the theft of $380,000 from the band’s accounts was uncovered by a private investigator hired by the company to look into “cash flow issues” the previous year.
According to Seattle PI, Goodrich used the stolen money to pay off debts, book family holidays and purchase wine. When initially confronted, he claimed that he had got permission for a number of loans from his line-manager at the band’s company, and subsequently paid back $55,000. But further investigation of the band’s accounts showed further records of payments to band and crew members which had never been received, as well as other suspicious bank transfers.
Prosecutors will push for a minimum of six months in prison, when Goodrich returns to court for sentencing on 21 Feb. However, if he fails to pay back all of the stolen money by this date, it’s expected that they will ask for a fourteen month jail term.
