BILLY and Bam Bam Brown from Alaskan Bush People went to jail for lying on Permanent Fund dividend applications.
The father and son pled guilty to one count of second-degree unsworn falsification, which is a misdemeanor.
Here is more on the Browns.
What is Alaskan Bush People?
The Alaskan Bush People features a family from Alaska’s wilderness.
For more than eight seasons, the hit Discovery Channel’s reality TV show has followed the Brown’s daily life in the wilderness as well as their seven children.
Ami Brown, 55, and her husband Billy, 66, live with their five sons, Matt, 36, Bam Bam, 34, Bear, 31, Gabe, 29, and Noah, 26, and daughters Bird, 24, and Rain, 16, in Washington State.
Who are Billy and Bam Bam Brown?
Billy Brown is the family patriarch of the Alaskan Bush people.
He was raised in an upper-middle-class home in Texas growing up.
His mother, father and sister died in a plane crash when he was 16 years old.
Billy claims that he was tricked into becoming emancipated from his family, meaning he gave up his right to the family fortune.
He spent years wandering the US and even worked as a commercial fisherman in the northern Pacific.
Bam Bam grew up on the family’s fishing boat and is often the expert when the family films out on the water.
However, he has moved away from Alaska and started to branch out on his own.
Bam Bam is dating Alli Kagan, a former producer on the show, and the pair have renovated a boat together.
Why did Billy and Bam Bam Brown go to jail?
The pair went to jail for lying on Permanent Fund dividend applications.
They pled guilty to one count of second-degree unsworn falsification, which is considered a misdemeanor.
As a part of their plea deal, the two must pay back the dividends they got, give up their rights to ever get a dividend again and complete 40 hours of community service work.
Billy’s attorney, James McGowan, argued against jail time for the 61-year-old, referencing his medical conditions, which he said includes seizures and trouble with his kidneys.
“Mr. Brown [is] not the first person to come before the court with significant medical problems,” Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg said, according to the Alaska Dispatch News.
Back in October 2014, state prosecutors charged Billy, his wife and four of their seven children with a total of 60 counts of first-degree unsworn falsification and their first-and-second-degree theft linked to dividend applications from 2010 to 2013.
Because Billy and Joshua Brown pled guilty, all the charges were dropped against the rest of the family.
How much does the cast make?
The Brown family’s net worth is an impressive $60million.
Billy is thought to be worth over $6million, and reportedly earns around $500,000 for the show.
His kids are thought to be paid about $40,000 to $60,000 each.
What happened to Ami Brown?
Ami was diagnosed with cancer last year.
She is now in remission despite being given just a three percent chance of survival.
While Ami still enjoys being in the great outdoors, she is limited in her activities due to her illness and chemotherapy treatment.
What happened to Bear Brown and his girlfriend Raiven?
Since the couple’s split, the two have publicly hit out against each other in multiple occasions.
Raiven has vowed to keep the couple’s newborn son away from the reality TV star.
She claims she has been “mentally abused for months” and that she tried to contact him during labor and after delivery, despite Bear suggesting otherwise.
Raiven had filed a restraining order against Bear before River’s birth and later dropped it, but accused him of being abusive.
Raiven gave birth just three days after dropping her restraining order against Bear.
