Quote:
Poison Drummer Collared on Rape Warrant


Look what the cops dragged in.

Rikki Rockett, the 46-year-old drummer of '80s hair-metal purveyor Poison, was taken into custody on a rape warrant as he arrived Monday at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight back from New Zealand.

The musician, whose real name is Richard Ream, was nabbed while going through customs and taken to Los Angeles County Jail, where he was booked on a felony fugitive sexual assault warrant issued from Neshoba County, Miss.

He was released the next afternoon, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department website.

No further details were available. Calls to authorities in Mississippi were not immediately returned.

But, according to TMZ, the alleged incident occurred Sept. 23, 2007 at the Silver Star Hotel & Casino. Rockett reportedly was staying at the Delta resort and alleged forced himself on a female guest, whose identity is not being disclosed for privacy reasons. She apparently filed a police report days later, and Neshoba authorities issued the warrant for his arrest after determining there was probable cause.

There was no comment from the band and there's no word on the musician's current whereabouts. He was in New Zealand for a Poison performance at Rock 2 Wellington, a huge metalhead concert in that country's capital.

A former hairdresser from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Rockett cofounded Poison in the mid-'80s with his high school pal, vocalist Bret Michaels.

The band's debut album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, sold more than 2 million copies.

Posion became a superstar act with the release of 1988's blockbuster follow-up, Open Up and Say...Ahh!, which spawned the megahit "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," along with "Nothin' But a Good Time" and "Your Mamma Don't Dance."

The band's third disc, Flesh and Blood, was almost as successful, scoring several top 10 hits, but eventually rising tensions over drug and alcohol abuse led the group to fire guitarist C.C. Deville and signaled the decline of the group.

(Originally published March 28, 2008 at 9:37 a.m. PT.)