John Mellencamp’s Sons Plead Guilty in Beat-down Case

Speck and Hud Mellencamp, the sons of John Mellencamp, have pleaded guilty in an Indiana court to misdemeanor battery charges nearly two years after they were involved in a retaliatory beat-down. To put it in Mellencamp's terms, they fought authority and eventually reached a compromise.

According to Billboard, Speck, 19, and Hud, 20, had their charges reduced from felonies because, as Monroe County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Bob Miller said, the victim did not sustain "serious bodily injury." Speck was sentenced to four days in jail and Hud will have to perform 50 hours of community service. Both were given one year of probation.

In July 2013, the Mellencamps, along with a friend, kicked, punched and stomped on a man, whose name has not been disclosed, following an incident at a party in Bloomington, Ind., earlier that day. Speck, in his affidavit, claimed that he had been breaking up a fight between two girls when he was struck by a man. The three men paid him back by beating him up on his front porch.

A month before the attack, Speck gave his father a black eye shortly before an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman. As John told the host, "My son and I had words, and he got a punch in and I didn’t [...] He’s 6’2″ and weighs almost 200 pounds.”

John was not present at the sentencing, but the boys' mother and Mellencamp's third ex-wife, model Elaine Irwin, was in attendance. The rocker is in the middle of a lengthy North American tour that will run through early August.

See John Mellencamp and Other Rockers in the Top 100 Albums of the '80s

Rock's Nastiest Feuds