Rock vocalist GG Allin's wild, sometimes recklessly bizarre antics are known to anyone who's endured his performances. But now he's facing up to six years in jail because his sado-masochistic conduct spilled offstage.
Allin, who cut his rock 'n' roll teeth in the Boston area with GG and the Jabbers (he's now banned from local clubs), has pleaded nolo contendre to a felony count of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder.
Charges were pressed by 25-year-old Leslie Marie Morgan, a short-lived girlfriend of Allin's who alleges that Allin beat and burned her in her Ann Arbor, Mich. apartment in April of this year. According to the Ann Arbor News, Morgan spent 12 days in University Hospital for burns that were the result of exposure to heat for at least 20 minutes.
The 33-year-old GG, real name Kevin M. Allin, was arrested September 9 in Oaklawn, Ill. while using an automatic teller machine on his way to a Rolling Stones concert.
When Allin responded to a letter written to him by John Hinckley, convicted for the attempted assassination of President Reagan, he caught the attention of the FBI. The bureau ran Allin's name through their computers and discovered the outstanding assault warrant.
With the aid of a disgruntled Chicago roommate and a Michigan club owner, Secret Service agents tracked Allin and apprehended him at the cash machine, according to Linda Perry of Muskegon, Michigan, one of GG's girlfriends. Allin was extradited to the Washtenaw Correctional Institution in Michigan and held on charges of indecent exposure, assault and battery, and the felony assault.
Bail was set at $10,500. Allin has remained incarcerated despite fund-raising efforts, which included a benefit at the Middle East Café in Cambridge, organized by GG's brother Merle Allin, who still resides in Boston.
The charges arose many months after plantiff Morgan, who had previously declared her intention to marry Allin, had been staying with him at a Muskegon, Mich. hotel for one week. T. Ricky Insult and Big Bad Bob, members of Allin's band, the Disappointments, said that Morgan invited them all to her apartment. She had herself handcuffed to a bed and told Allin a variety of perverse things she wanted done to herself. They included cutting her clothes off, and cutting her stomach and breasts with her butterfly knife.
The next morning, after taking T. Ricky and Big Bad Bob out for breakfast, she finished off some more booze and broke out the mirrors and windows in her apartment, ranting and staggering around. The band said she quieted down after GG hit her over the head with a bottle.
The alcohol-induced activities continued as Morgan housed GG and the boys for three more days. "Not once did she cry out in pain or yell for help," said band members T. Ricky and Big Bad Bob. "It was all her idea."
They testified that Morgan continued sending love letters and having long phone conversations with Allin and was angry when he spurned her order of marriage. She also regularly wrote to the Disappointments, with her last letter dated two weeks before Allin's arrest.
"This woman invited me and the band to her apartment," said Allin in his own defense. "She wanted us up there. She got mad because the whole band wouldn't cum on her at the same time. She never protested to anything at the time."
Ann Arbor police detectives described Allin's actions and lifestyle as among the most bizarre they'd ever come across. He once ran into trouble with New Jersey authorities when he trashed a hotel while waiting to appear on the Morton Downey Jr. show. Onstage, he defecates, exposes himself, and beats and bloodies his body, sometimes involving the crowd as well.
Most of Allin's front teeth were lost during shows in Chicago when crowbars and feet from an overzealous crowd landed in his face. He had claimed he would finish his career on Halloween 1990 by committing suicide on stage and "taking some spectators with him."
At his arraignment, the court ordered that Allin be given a psychiatric examination. According to Peter Yarmouth, head of Allin's Rhode Island record label Black and Blue, Allin resisted.
"I know I'm not guilty," Allin said. "I don't need to see a shrink. I want to go on with this and prove it's a bum rap."
Allin also balked when his attorney recommended the nolo (no contest) plea, threatening to fire the lawyer and defend himself. He reconsidered and was to face sentencing early in December.
Defense anticipated a sentence of 2 years, with one year off for good behavior. But the prosecution, wanting to underscore the severity of the charges, presented further testimony from Morgan on Friday. Now Allin is expected to get six years, with sentencing arriving in Allin's Christmas stocking.
"Right now it's a matter of how bad they want to do me up," says GG. "I'm dead meat, and I know I'm going to be doing some serious time."
"Unfortunately, it looks like his Halloween antics are going to have to be postponed," said Black and Blue's Yarmouth. Allin's recording career will carry on, however, with the soon-to-be released "Doctrine of Mayhem."
Yarmouth sees interest in Allin growing because of the case, especially in Europe. "We get lots of letters from there that say 'GG is god.'"
"I've never had any bad dealings with GG, he's done a lot for my label," Yarmouth continued. "As far as other people go, I can only apologize if he's hurt anyone else."
Despite the impending jail term, Yarmouth reports that Allin has been in pretty good spirits, "mainly because he's been drug free since he's been locked up. He's quite civil to talk to, which is pretty unusual for GG."
Tristram Lozsaw
Included with this article, a response by GG Allin was presented:
Who says every human being in our judicial system has equal rights? Not so. They are sending me to prison because they are afraid of the real underground of rock 'n' roll. They are just a bunch of rich pigs trying to line their pockets at my expense. I didn't get tried for the crime I supposedly committed, but because of who I am and my reputation.
My sorry excuse for a lawyer (public defender) might just as well have been the prosecutor, as he did absolutely nothing but to join in with all the other pigs and push my ass into Jackson State Prison. They say I am a threat to society and that I have suicidal tendencies, so they have to hold me for more tests.
Do they think this will stop me? Because it won't. I have every right to kill myself. I have been on the razor's edge for the past 13 years. Russian roulette will only allow you so much time. So I decided to put myself on death row. But now it's a conspiracy throughout this country to keep me in a cage and try to figure out my mind.
But no matter what happens, I will get out one day and finish out what I have set out to do. Nobody will stop me. So the judicial system, the pigs, lawyer, prosecutors and everyone else who stands in the way can suck my ass.
Signed,
GG Allin
December 1989, from jail. I will be sentenced on December 22.
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