On TV, pro wrestlers do quite a few things that would get them in pretty substantial legal trouble in real life. That's all entertainment, but a few have run into some genuinely serious trouble with the law, and they're still serving time for it.
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00:00On TV, pro wrestlers do quite a few things that would get them in pretty substantial
00:04legal trouble in real life. That's all entertainment. But a few have run into some genuinely serious
00:10trouble with the law, and they're still serving time for it.
00:14Tammy Sitch, who rose to fame as the original diva, Sunny, in the WWF in the mid-1990s,
00:20was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2011. But her life has spiraled into chaos
00:25since then. In 2012, Sitch was arrested five times in four weeks. She repeatedly violated
00:31protective orders following an altercation with her then-boyfriend, independent wrestler
00:35Damian Darling.
00:37After a sixth arrest in January 2013, she served 114 days in jail in Connecticut. In
00:42May 2015, she was arrested several times for drunk driving, including one incident where
00:47she drove into a ditch, blaming her GPS for the sudden turn. In January 2016, she was
00:52sentenced to 90 days in jail, but her time spent in rehab counted as time served.
00:58She would be in and out of jail for the next six years, from repeated drunk driving offenses
01:02and related charges, including contempt of court, to eluding a police officer. She was
01:07also arrested for illegally possessing a weapon and making terroristic threats during an incident
01:12in which she allegedly threatened to kill a, quote, intimate partner while brandishing
01:16a pair of scissors. It all sadly culminated in March 2022. Sitch was involved in a fatal
01:22car crash in Florida in which a 75-year-old man was killed. According to a police report,
01:28Sitch rear-ended a car that was stopped at a light.
01:30Sitch was taken to a hospital where her blood was drawn. That May, she was arrested on DUI
01:35and manslaughter charges, after it was determined she was 3.5 times over the legal blood alcohol
01:41limit during the crash. She was initially released on bond before a judge ruled her
01:45a danger to the community, and she returned to jail.
01:48Sitch pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison.
01:53Her tentative release date is December 2039.
01:56A precious life was lost that tragic day, and I'm so incredibly sorry for that."
02:04Fans knew Brian Michael McGee by a few different ring names, including Donovan Ruddick, D.T.
02:09Porter, and The Future. But they haven't seen him in quite a while, because he's in prison
02:13for first-degree murder after the 2013 killing of his 25-year-old ex-girlfriend in Tampa,
02:19Florida.
02:20Ruddick, who was 29 and married at the time, was accused of stabbing Bianca McGaughey multiple
02:24times at her apartment complex. The victim was talking on the phone with McGee's wife
02:29while walking her dog. According to the police, McGaughey and McGee had broken up around a
02:33year earlier, but he continued to contact her. McGee had reportedly parked outside of
02:38the victim's home before approaching her, stabbing her, and fleeing the scene. He crashed
02:43into a guardrail after police chased him to an adjacent county.
02:46Last night, he crashed his vehicle and refused to get out of the car, so they deployed one
02:51of our canine.
02:52In the trial, prosecutors revealed that McGee had admitted to the murder on Facebook, posting
02:57bloody photos of the victim on the social media site. Prosecutors also said McGee went
03:01to retrieve another knife from his car after the first one he used to stab McGaughey broke.
03:06In July 2016, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
03:11Dead body Harrison Norris was best known as a jobber in WCW in the late 1990s. He remained
03:17with the promotion until it was bought out by WWE in 2001. His contract was not renewed.
03:23He also appeared on the FX show Tough Man, which aired from 1999 to 2001, becoming heavyweight
03:28champion in 2000.
03:30In August 2005, Norris' home in Georgia was raided by FBI agents. He was arrested on nine
03:35counts of false imprisonment and sex trafficking. According to the Department of Justice, Norris
03:41had been running a sex work business around the Atlanta area. He and a co-conspirator
03:45recruited and forced women, many of whom were poor, unhoused, or addicted to drugs, to do
03:50sex work. The DOJ contended that Harrison promised several victims he was starting an
03:55all-women's wrestling promotion and would train them to wrestle.
03:58The investigation also found that Norris forced victims to do physical labor, such as hauling
04:03trees and laying sod, at two homes. Charging documents said Norris kept the victims financially
04:09indebted to him and told them they couldn't leave until all their debts were paid. In
04:13April 2008, he was sentenced to life in prison. Norris was also required to pay a $2,400 special
04:20assessment.
04:21Former Mexican wrestler Juana Barraza-Samperio was sentenced to a total of 759 years in prison
04:28after being convicted of murdering 16 elderly women in the early 1990s. Barraza was a luchadora
04:34known as La Dama del Silencio, or the Lady of Silence. Many characterized her, though,
04:40as a superfan who rarely got into the ring herself. She was reportedly more interested
04:44in the social life in Mexican lucha libre circles.
04:47We were friends, sort of like party friends. We partied hard. We teased each other.
04:54During her trial, Barraza, who became known as the Little Old Lady Killer, confessed to
04:58three additional murders. But authorities went on to estimate she was involved in the
05:02deaths of between 42 and 48 people in total. Barraza allegedly pretended to be a government
05:08nurse to get access to her victims, whom she would bludgeon or strangle before robbing
05:12them. She was caught in 2006 after fleeing a scene in which she had just strangled a
05:16victim with a stethoscope. Her case went to trial in 2008, and by the time it was closed,
05:21authorities still had 30 unsolved murders on their hands.
05:25The king of rock and roll Buck Zoomhoff worked in WCCW and the AWA, holding multiple championships,
05:33including the AWA World Light Heavyweight Championship. He also appeared as a jobber
05:36in the WWF in the 1980s and 90s, where he was the first person to be put in a body bag
05:42by The Undertaker. He was also the first WWF wrestler to lose a televised match against
05:47a debuting Hunter Hearst Hensley, later known as Triple H.
05:51Zoomhoff faced legal trouble for the first time in 1986, when he was found guilty of
05:55sexual misconduct with a minor. He spent 36 months in prison after being convicted on
06:00the same charge in a separate case in January 1989. He was once again arrested in May 2013,
06:06charged this time with 12 felony counts of criminal sexual misconduct for abusing a relative
06:12between 1999 and 2011. The victim reported the abuse after seeking therapy and medical
06:17care in 2012, and also testified during the trial.
06:21Zoomhoff reportedly ran from corrections officers and deputies after his trial. A complaint
06:25stated that after the guilty verdicts were read in court, Zoomhoff's attorney asked to
06:30meet with him in a separate room. When Zoomhoff was being led out into the hallway, he attempted
06:35to run but was subdued. In May 2014, he was sentenced to more than 25 years in prison.