Ike Turner Jr., son of the late legendary singer Tina Turner and former husband and musical partner Ike Turner, was arrested Saturday, May 6, and has been charged with crack cocaine possession and tampering with evidence, PEOPLE exclusively confirms.
The 2007 Grammy award-winning musician was sentenced to jail 18 days before the Queen of Rock & Roll died at age 83 in her home in Switzerland on May 24.
Alvin, Texas, police pulled over Ike Jr., 64, at a traffic light on 200 N. 6th St. at 12:09 a.m. for an equipment violation (the headlight or taillight was out) while driving a white 2013 Ford Fusion, according to police. A subsequent investigation led to the officers seizing 1.7 grams of crack cocaine and .7 grams of methamphetamine when they noticed Ike Jr. attempting to consume the narcotics in his possession.
“He tried to eat the drugs before the officers could seize them from him,” says Capt. Q.T. Arendell of the Alvin Police Dept. Ike Jr.’s passenger, Jessica Salinas-Esquivel, is also being charged with possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamines), according to the incident report provided by the Alvin Police Department.
Ike Jr. worked as Tina’s sound engineer following his mother’s split from her abusive ex-husband, but the stint didn’t last long. “When my mother and father separated, he did not want me working with her — and he beat me in the head with a nickel-plated .45 pistol,” Ike Jr. alleged. In 2018, he told the Daily Mail that he hadn’t talked to his mother in over a decade.
Since the 1970s, Ike Jr.’s father had battled a spiraling cocaine addiction. Ike had a long string of drug arrests and charges — most notably for shooting a 49-year-old news carrier in the leg, leaving him bleeding on his lawn in Inglewood in 1981. Eventually, Ike served an 18-month prison sentence for cocaine possession, starting in 1989. He died of an overdose in 2007 at age 76.
Most recently, Ike Jr. played in a tribute band, The Love Thang Band, with singer Sweet Randi Love, and released the single “Yes to Life” last year. For the past month, Ike Jr. has been detained at the Brazoria County Jail and has not posted $70,000 bail, per jail records.
Along with his two charges — including possessing a controlled substance and tampering with evidence — he also has a seemingly unrelated outstanding warrant that’s noted on the incident report.
Source: People
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