Kasey Anderson, Fraud: Faked Benefit Album with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Others

Musician Kasey Anderson has been arrested and charged with wire fraud after concocting phony music projects he said he had been working on, including one that supposedly was to include Jack White, Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen.

According to The Columbian, Anderson surrendered to federal officials on Tuesday (Jan. 29) in Seattle after the musician had raised money for an album to benefit the West Memphis Three entitled Trapped Like a Ghost. Anderson told investors he had secured several big name performers, even going so far as to create fake emails from Springsteen's manager. The singer didn't enter a plea in U.S. District Court in Seattle and prosecutors have said he has repaid $160,000 of the over $525,000 he raised.

An in-depth article in Seattle Weekly last December shed more light on what transpired. Anderson and his band the Honkies had been supporting Counting Crows on a European trek last October when news of the deception began to surface.

"They unearthed one thing after another," Anderson told the publication, adding that Lady Gaga and even Arcade Fire had allegedly committed to the benefit album with R.E.M., Nelson and Tom Waits to have cuts on the record. He would also later allegedly impersonate producer Danny Bland, the man behind the 2000 benefit album Free the West Memphis 3.

"I didn't ever confront the enormity of what I'd done to people until after everybody already knew. Everybody just sort of closed in on me. Not in a malicious way, but because they were worried about me. It's not the behavior of a healthy person."

In 2009, Anderson and his group toured through Europe but investors from three states (Arizona, New York and California) paid for the trek and loaned him over $100,000 for the benefit album to coincide with the West Memphis Three's release from prison. Instead, Anderson used the money for other purposes while alleging the money got stolen in the mail and he had his identity stolen.

"Once the money was raised and kept being raised for other projects, that's the part I can't wrap my head around," the musician said. "Why didn't I just say, 'This is not going to happen, here's everything back'?" Last October a judgement of $185,000 was levied against him with his group the Honkies soon disbanding.

There's no word as to when Anderson will make his next court appearance. The singer -- who had his own label Red River Records and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder -- released an album in 2012 called Let the Bloody Moon Rise.