She's best known for her 70’s hit "If I can’t have you" and her role as Mary Magdelene in Jesus Christ Superstar. Now, Yvonne Elliman-Alexander can add a drug bust at the Guam airport on the way to a third fundraising for Guam Mount Carmel School to her history.
The Grammy Award-winning singer Yvonne Elliman-Alexander and her husband were arrested on arrival after Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency dogs sniffed out methamphetamine and marijuana Tuesday night.
Court documents say crystal-like rocks and a glass pipe with suspected methamphetamine residue were in the singer’ s belongings.
Elliman-Alexander, 65, is charged with one count of possession of a controlled substance on board an aircraft, a first-degree felony and her husband, Allen is charged with one count of possession of a controlled substance as a third-degree felony.
The two were released on $10,000 personal recognizance bonds, but were ordered by a judge not to leave Guam without permission of the court.
A statement from the Archdiocese of Agana expressed opposition to the pending performance. "We expressed strongly that a performer who had just been arrested for possession of drugs should not participate in an event sponsored by a Catholic school."
While it is a Catholic school, Mount Carmel is legally operated by the Mount Carmel Alumni and Endowment Foundation, which took over after the diocese decided to close the school. And the diocese said its position had been communicated to the foundation.
"The Catholic Church is strongly against the use of illegal drugs," the diocese statement said. "Such abuse is destructive not only for those who do drugs, but to those around them and society in general."
Guam Attorney Mike Phillips, chair of the Alumni and Endowment Foundation, said the singer and her husband would abide by the court-imposed conditions of their release and that he expected that Saturday night's concert at the Dusit Thani Guam Resort will go off as expected.
The church strongly begs to differ: "The archdiocese regrets that the Mount Carmel Alumni Foundation has chosen to continue the gala event with the participation of Elliman-Alexander."