Roscoe Tanner

[Rusty27]

Jay,remember this tennis player? he had a little incident here in Knoxville

In May of 2008 Roscoe Tanner was arrested in Knoxville, Tennessee for the felony of writing $72,000 in worthless checks as "payment" for two Toyota Highlanders. Several years before, he was arrested in the same city for violating probation resulting from his guilty pleas in Florida relating to felony worthless check and grand theft.
Tanner has an extensive record of conflicts with the law. He was arrested in Germany by Interpol on a felony fugitive warrant for skipping out on the above referenced felony charges filed against him in Florida. He pleaded guilty, received an initial probationary sentence, and after violating the terms of that probation, was sentenced to two years in the Florida Dept of Corrections. After serving one year of his sentence, he was released one year early for "good behavior."
Tanner has also been arrested and jailed in Georgia for Criminal Contempt of Court and refusal to pay child support, and arrested and jailed in New Jersey for the same charges.
In California, Tanner has been charged at least a dozen times for criminal contempt of court or refusal to pay child support or for failing or refusing to appear in court as ordered. He has been convicted of criminal contempt of court three times, and served at least one term of under 45 days in the Orange County Jail, and he is on probation until 2012

[BtownJay]

Wow... yeah i remember Tanner. I don't believe he was still playing when i was watching, but i remember reading about him. Back in the day, I believe i even had a "Roscoe Tanner tennis video game" or he was in it or something. However, i never heard about any of his legal troubles. Dude seems to be a mess and has zero concept of money. I wonder if he doesn't have any money and trying to spend like he does, or if he has the money and is a horrible book keeper.

[Rusty27]

Apparently he refused to give the cars back so I'd say it was not just book keeping
Here is a post from someone that seems to know is troubles pretty well.
I imagine Roscoe is rehearsing his "story":
"But judge, I have many excuses -- I mean, "reasons" for why I committed this felony -- I mean, why the Toyota guy 'misunderstood' me so badly:
1. I never 'intended' for those checks to bounce. The actual person to blame for the insufficient funds is my step-mother who is the custodian of my $2.5 million trust. She simply failed to transfer the funds to my checking account as fast as I needed her to.
2. My step-mother is here today in person to apologize for her oversight and negligence in not moving my money over to my checking account. She is genuinely sorry for the inconvenience she has caused me, your Honor3
3. I didn't know I could have gotten out of all this 'criminal stuff' simply by returning the cars. In Florida, I sold the boat I got by using the same scam, and they didn't make me do any additional 'time' for not giving the boat back to the guy I wrote the bad check to. How 'bout I return both vehicles and let's forget about all this 'unpleasantness' so I can get back to supporting my wife and kids?
4. You Tennessee lawmen ought to cut me some slack. After all, I'm 'born again' and I help underprivileged youths -- except my own children.
5. I thought that this is the Bible Belt, and YOU are supposed to forgive ME when I say I'm sorry. Well, I'm sorry -- this was all a simple misunderstanding on the part of the dealership. I told them it was only a piece of paper, and that it was as good as my word. That is exactly the truth, Judge.
6. I'll tell you what I'll do, Judge: I'll give the dealership $100,000 worth of stock in Tanner Tennis Camps, and I'll give a free tennis lesson to kids in the projects if you let me off this time. Everybody knows how badly kids in the projects need tennis lessons. You don't want to deprive those kids of their only opportunity to learn tennis, do you, Judge?
7. Come on, Judge -- my dad was a lawyer, just like you, so you can trust ME. It's not MY fault that HE didn't teach me to obey the law like everybody else. Gosh, I'm just a tennis player, not a lawyer. You can't hold me accountable for laws that I don't even know about as if I was a lawyer or something.
8. And speaking of lawyers, my attorney is Turner Howard. I swear he didn't really hide me out when the police were looking for me in 2005, honest. And he didn't go around the backs of the Florida DA or Judge when he offered my Florida victim partial restitution rather than paying that money to the Clerk of Court as required. How in the world would a lawyer know that he can't make deals with my victim after my conviction? He certainly must've thought it was OK since the defendant was ME."