MISSOULA, MT – Eric Rosser, a former bandmate of John Mellencamp, formerly known as John Cougar Mellencamp, formerly known as John Cougar, was just sentenced to a minimum of ten years after fleeing from federal supervisory custody on a bus with $70,000 in cash, a bunch of weed, and enough kiddie porn to gum up the works.
Eric Franklin Rosser is his own worst enemy.
The former keyboardist for John Mellencamp, including work on the iconic 1982 album American Fool, just agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors that brings to a close a spirited but misguided run for freedom that was derailed by Rosser's inability to abstain from porno-peeking at the younger ones.
It was not his first brush with the law over this particular weakness.
Rosser reached his peak stardom in 2000, some 18 years after his work with the then-John-Cougar, when he was placed on the FBI's infamous Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for production and distribution of child pornography. At the time he was in Thailand, that Shangra-La of too-young love; he would be arrested there in August 2001 and subsequently extradited to the US to face the clammy hand of Justice.
He was finally released from federal custody on January 13th 2017, and lasted six months before he cut and ran "to avoid going back to prison." Some things, it seems, are foreordained.
"Run, rabbit, run" he did, on that hot day in July 2017. He had $10,000 in cash strapped to each leg, another $50k in his luggage and $1000 worth of weed (whatever that is) in reserve "for personal use." And more than a felony's worth of kiddie porn.
And he'd have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't'a been for his damned self.
A fellow traveler on the bus from Butte to Billings noticed that Rosser was looking at child pornography on an unspecified device, because he just couldn't help himself, escape plans be damned. When said traveler approached Rosser about his illicit activities, Rosser was completely dismissive, telling the Nosy Nellie "leave me alone. I know I have a problem."
Not content with that, Nosy Nellie called the police, who obligingly met the bus at the next stop. They yanked Rosser off the bus, and he admitted to everything.
On October 9th, after the plea deal was finalized, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch sentenced Rosser to a minimum of ten years and warned that he "may be on supervised release for the rest of his life following the prison term."
One can only hope.
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