Everyone knows with great power comes great responsibility… and a greater ability to get your ass out of trouble when you decide to beat up a woman or put pounds of drugs in your body. Consider it part of their work’s benefits package. But as time passes and new celebs do stupider things, we often forget about some of the absurdly asinine crimes some stars have gotten away with. Until now…

Johnny Cash

While Mike Vick currently faces the ire of PETA and every other hippie on the planet for organizing a dog fighting ring, country music star Johnny Cash is remembered primarily for his great tunes and clichéd depiction by crackhead Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line. What few remember about the Cash Man is that he trumped anything Vick ever did to the Animal Kingdom by nearly wiping out an entire species during a trip to Los Padres National Forest in California.

After his car began to overheat, Cash abandoned ship and watched as it set aflame and blew up, killing 49 California Condors –or roughly half the bird’s entire population – in one fell swoop. He settled out of court for $82,000… a small price compared to the $30 million the government was spending to conserve the Condors.

Elvis Costello

Just as Americans were starting to embrace desegregation in the 1970s, along came a four-eyed British musician with a mouthful of bigotry. While doing what musicians do best – getting hammered at a cheap hotel bar – Costello affectionately referred to Ray Charles as a “blind, ignorant n*****” and James Brown as a “jive-ass n*****.”

In a defense move that would’ve made even Johnny Cochrane spin in his grave, Costello claimed that he was trying to use shock value to draw an end to a ridiculous topic of conversation. Of course, he made amends to the entire black community by lending 30 minutes of his life to the Rock Against Racism charity concert. He then tried to cure world hunger by giving a single homeless man the crust from his ham sandwich.

Dr. Dre

Acclaimed rapper/producer, respected business mogul, notorious woman-beater. Yup, during his days with NWA, Dre once beat the ever-loving crap out of TV host Dee Barnes. Claiming “the bitch had it coming,” Dre confronted Barnes at a house party in L.A. after she had interviewed fellow NWA rapper Ice Cube on her show. Dre repeatedly smashed Barnes’ face and body into a wall, then tried to throw her down a stairway. When he failed in that attempt, he began kicking her ribs as she lay motionless on the ground.

Barnes tried to sue Dre for a cool $22.5 million, but using his good standing in society as a doctor, Dre was able to escape with no more than 240 hours of community service and two years probation. Oh yeah, he also had to do an anti-violence PSA, which presumably took away precious time from filming music videos for songs about beating the crap out of women, snitches and the po-po.

Tim Allen

Long before he had a loving wife and three sons in TV Land, Tim Allen was a drug-addicted stand-up comic who put coke up his nose as rapidly as Kobiyashi eats hot dogs. He was also a drug smuggler who got caught in an airport with 1.4 pounds of white powder in his possession. Facing a lifetime in prison, Allen turned snitch and dimed out every dealer and distributor he knew. As a result of his cooperation, Allen’s term was reduced so significantly that he only spent 28 months behind bars.

As soon as he was released, Allen began his lightspeed ascension towards superstardom. And in the ultimate act of irony, he landed one of the lead roles in the most prominent children’s film of the 1990s – Toy Story. Yes, son, your favorite character is actually a two-timing coke peddler. Only in Hollywood…