Pearl Jam Exec Jailed for Theft

A former member of Pearl Jam’s management team has been sentenced to 14 months in jail after his thefts cost the band $556,000.

Chief financial officer Rickey Goodrich, 55, last year admitted stealing a total of $380,000 over four years, with the additional expense coming from the band’s investigations into the crimes.

He’d been hired as an accountant in 2005 and promoted to CFO the following year. He was fired four years later when manager Kelly Curtis looked into “cash flow issues” and found Goodrich had been paying large sums of money into his own bank accounts.

On being confronted with the transactions Goodrich had claimed they were “loans” which he’d repaid. It was later discovered he’d only handed back $55,000 of the total.

Since then he’s repaid $125,000 and agreed to deliver a further $181,000. But that wasn’t enough to keep him out of jail. King Country Superior Judge Roger Rogoff has given Goodrich two weeks of freedom to settle some outstanding financial affairs before he’s officially sentenced and begins serving his time.

Pearl Jam – who tour the UK in July – have made no official comment. Curtis last year said: “We are deeply saddened by this situation but we’re looking forward to a resolution.”