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radioPhil Driscoll given year and a day sentence for tax evansion
GRAMMY-winning singer, trumpeter and CCM star Phil Driscoll was sentenced in January to a year and a day in prison for using his gospel music ministry in an income-tax evasion scheme. U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier allowed Driscoll 45 days to report to prison and agreed to decide by that March 12 deadline on Driscoll's request to remain free while he appeals his conviction. The white-haired trumpeter said at the sentencing that he "never intended to take any money from our government, the country that I love."
Said Driscoll, "I never took a dollar that I didn't sign for. The purpose of my life was the gift that God gave me." Last June, a jury found Driscoll, 58, guilty on charges of conspiracy and tax evasion from 1996 through 1999. The indictment accused Driscoll and his wife, Lynne, of scheming with Lynne Driscoll's mother, bookkeeper Chris Blankenship, to avoid reporting personal income totaling more than $1 million. An IRS agent testified at the trial that Driscoll and his wife improperly used his Mighty Horn Ministries to shield the money and evade $128,627 in taxes. The jury acquitted Lynne Driscoll on the conspiracy count and deadlocked on a tax evasion charge that was later dismissed.
At the end of the sentencing, Phil Driscoll's unpaid tax total was reduced
to a range of more than $30,000 but less than $80,000. Collier did not
impose a fine on Driscoll and said no restitution was due. Driscoll
recorded with several pop acts in the 1970s, including Joe Cocker,
Stephen Stills, Leon Russell and Blood, Sweat & Tears. He received
a Grammy in 1984. He recorded more than 30 of his own albums of gospel
and patriotic music, which he distributes through his ministry and its
Web site. Driscoll performed "America" at the dedication ceremony for
Bill Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. The judge,
who was appointed by the former president, said Clinton was among
those who sent him letters on Driscoll's behalf. 
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In early 1970's, I attended high school at Southwest high,
Playing trumpet.my conductor, Robert Norman, took Bill Kuntz & myself to the basement of the Chase Park Plaza Hotel.Phil Driscoll and his band were playing @ the time.
He played a rendition of Elenor Rigby like no one ever has. Whole playing, he reached over the bar, grabbed a bottle, pored a ring around himself (with the bottle), splashed is trumpet with the liquid, then set them both on fire, continuing his rendition of the song octaves higher than anyone has played.That show will be embedded in my mind forever.Never saw anything like it to this day.