Did Rick Harrison from the TV show "Pawn Stars" receive a sentence of life imprisonment in March 2025? No, that's not true: Videos claiming that the Las Vegas reality TV star had been convicted of "trafficking looted artifacts" were no more than fantasy fiction. Harrison appeared on his podcast, and posted on social media, several times after his supposed incarceration.
The claim appeared in several videos in late March and early April 2025, including one widely-viewed video posted to YouTube on March 26 (archived here), which bore the title:
Rick Harrison From Pawn Stars Sentenced To Life Imprisonment
A voiceover narrator presented a lengthy account of Harrison's life and career up until now, before finally specifically alleging that he had been convicted for "trafficking looted artifacts," and then given a life sentence.
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: YouTube screenshot)
Like other similar videos posted in the same period, the March 26 one did not specify a jurisdiction or court or name the judge supposedly involved in sentencing Harrison.
The narrator in the March 26 video also made the remarkable claim that "images of Rick being led away in handcuffs dominated news coverage and social media."
On April 14, Lead Stories searched Google News for the phrase "'Rick Harrison' prison". That search yielded no relevant results, demonstrating that the claim of wall to wall news coverage of Harrison's supposed arrest was, of course, totally false.
In a further confirmation that the story was no more than a fantasy, Harrison appeared in a new episode of his podcast on April 10, and posted several times on social media after his supposed incarceration.
