{"id":2105879,"date":"2025-10-21T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2105879"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:00:12","slug":"illinois-man-arrested-after-pretending-to-be-rocker-sammy-hagar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/illinois-man-arrested-after-pretending-to-be-rocker-sammy-hagar\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois man arrested after pretending to be rocker Sammy Hagar"},"content":{"rendered":"

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MOUNT VERNON, Ill. (WTVO) \u2014\u00a0An Illinois man was taken into custody after allegedly impersonating rock legend Sammy Hagar at several area businesses, including two banks and a vape shop.<\/p>\n

Police say Ronnie Putnam, 58, of Summersville, entered multiple establishments claiming to be \u201cthe real Red Rocker\u201d and attempted to open accounts under the name\u00a0Sammy Hagar Enterprises, LLC.<\/p>\n

Witnesses say Putnam even performed a brief a cappella version of Hagar\u2019s 1984 hit \u201cI Can\u2019t Drive 55\u201d in an effort to prove his identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he was on tour but needed to cash a royalty check,\u201d a bank teller told police. \u201cHe was wearing red sunglasses and smelled faintly of margarita mix, so I thought it was actually him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putnam was arrested on Oct. 18 after presenting a homemade ID card that read \u201cSammy Hagar, Rock God.\u201d He faces charges of fraud and disorderly conduct.<\/p>\n

When asked for comment during his arrest, Putnam reportedly shouted, \u201cI can\u2019t drive to jail!\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities say no money was exchanged and no accounts were opened.<\/p>\n

\"Ronnie<\/span><\/div>\n

Ronnie Putnam allegedly tried to open a bank account in the name of rock musician Sammy Hagar. (MOUT VERNON POLICE PHOTO)<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/i><\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOUNT VERNON, Ill. (WTVO) \u2014\u00a0An Illinois man was taken into custody after allegedly impersonating rock legend Sammy Hagar at several area businesses, including two banks and a vape shop. Police say Ronnie Putnam, 58, of Summersville, entered multiple establishments claiming to be \u201cthe real Red Rocker\u201d and attempted to open accounts under the name\u00a0Sammy Hagar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2105880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[398527,351755],"class_list":["post-2105879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ronnie-putnam","tag-sammy-hagar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Illinois-man-arrested-after-pretending-to-be-rocker-Sammy-Hagar.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2105879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2105881,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105879\/revisions\/2105881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2105880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2105879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2105879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2105879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}