In the 1990s, John Haley came into front page national news as a result of the Whitewater investigations. Haley was a close personal friend and attorney for convicted Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker. On February 20, 1998, John Haley pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of "willful failure to supply information to an accounting firm" to the Internal Revenue Service. On August 20, 1998, Haley was sentenced to three years of probation and eight hours a week of community service. He was fined $30,000 and ordered to pay back $40,000 to the IRS.