Here is how Etta said she ended up getting locked up:

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“[I] found a few gigs in New York when Esther Phillips (most known for her 1975 disco remake of Dinah Washington’s “What A Diff’rence A Day Makes”) and I started working a cash-checking scheme to feed our drug habits.

After we got the money from the cash-checking scheme we’d take the bread and cop us some dope before working the scheme at another hotel. Bouncing from hotel to hotel, we kept ourselves high for weeks. Finally, I got caught since I had the checkbook and not Esther. I did a short bid on Rikers Island.”

“When I was released, I resumed my singing career.”

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Etta also described another time when she got locked up by the same officers who busted Ray Charles in that infamous heroine drug bust:

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“I was with [my drag queen friend] Destiny and singer Esther Phillips when I got busted in Indianapolis. Ray Charles had been busted there by the same cops who hassled us. Esther got off because she claimed to be just passing through. Esther, bless her heart, was a junkie like us but couldn’t own up to it. They threw me and Destiny in jail.”

“Life returned to normal when we were released but my friend Destiny would eventually die of a drug overdose. She was a cherished friend and I wish I could have saved her.”

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Now in order to understand how Etta got to that point, you have to look at where she’d been prior to that and how gangsters an even jazz legend Sarah Vaughan was mixed up in all of this. Etta explains it here:

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“My friend Faye introduced me to black gangster Red Dillard. Red was a famous mobster with a Robin Hood reputation. He was known as a cat who looked out for poor folks.”

“He was also known for bloody shoot-outs with Bumpy Johnson (shown above). I liked Red, we weren’t in love with each other but we were a good couple and he respected women. The year I went with him wasn’t his best, he had legal problems involving a murder rap, but nevertheless, he bought me a gorgeous mink coat that one of his hookers stole for him.”

“While I was going with Red, my friend Faye had a affair with singer Sarah Vaughn’s husband, C.B. Atkins. C.B. had a fleet of…

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