James Everett Dutschke Went From Impersonating Wayne Newton to Prison — Where Is He Now?

We really have to applaud Netflix for always finding the most interesting, and sometimes wild, true crime stories. In December 2024, the streaming juggernaut dropped one of its more interesting tales from the controversial genre. It involves an Elvis impersonator, former president Barack Obama, and a whole lotta hunk, a hunk of burning hate.

In The Kings Of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Story, we meet one man who was so hated by another that he tried to frame him for a serious federal crime.

In April 2013, the home of Elvis impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis was raided by local police and federal investigators. He was subsequently charged with sending letters laced with ricin, a lethal poison, to various government officials as well as then-President Barack Obama. Eventually, Curtis was freed and James Everett Dutschke was arrested. Where is he now?

In June 2013, former Wayne Newton impersonator James Everett Dutschke was indicted by a grand jury and charged with producing and using the deadly toxin as a weapon, using the mail to threaten Obama, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Lee County Judge Sadie Holland," per CNN.

The indictment also said that Dutschke attempted to implicate Curtis for the crimes. Thankfully the charges against Curtis were immediately dropped.

Dutschke pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, in January 2014. He is currently housed at the United States Penitentiary, Tucson, a federal prison in Arizona. One week after pleading guilty to a federal crime, Dutschke also pleaded guilty to three fondling charges, reported the Daily Journal.

Prosecutors in Lee County said he "inappropriately touched former students at his martial arts studio in Tupelo." They recommended a 20-year sentence that would run concurrently with the other.

Chapman and Maclain Way have a talent for finding compelling characters. If their names sound familiar, it might be because you watched their other massively successful docuseries: Wild, Wild Country. The siblings spoke with Deadline about The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga and how they found themselves in Elvis' hometown, up to their necks in conspiracy theories.

"We were vaguely familiar about this 2013 story where an Elvis impersonator from Elvis’s hometown had been arrested for trying to assassinate the President," Chapman told the outlet. "That sounded absolutely bananas." They hopped on a plane to Mississippi and were immediately charmed by Tupelo. They felt as if this rough and tough little town had a chip on its shoulder because it was always lost in the shadows of Memphis and Graceland.

They quickly learned that in the South, storytelling is a special kind of art form, especially when it came to Paul Kevin Curtis. "You have your antenna up but Kevin, from the very beginning was maybe one of the most open-book subjects we’ve ever had," explained Chapman.

He invited the duo to live with him and for the next three-and-a-half years, that's kind of what they did.

There is also another proud tradition in the South that comes with spinning a good yarn, and that is stretching the truth. They were warned often, that some details might be embellished. This undoubtedly lent itself to the conspiracy theories that were floated by their subjects. If you had a million years, you couldn't dream up the places this series goes.

For more on this story, stream The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga on Netflix.