Tupper Saussy, 70; songwriter was a fugitive for nearly a decade in tax protest case

Tupper Saussy, 70, a Grammy-nominated songwriter who later became a tax protester and spent 10 years as a fugitive, died March 16 of a heart attack at his home in Nashville.

Born Frederick Tupper Saussy III, he had a nearly 50-year career in Nashville in advertising and music. He was nominated for a Grammy for writing the 1969 hit “Morning Girl” for Neon Philharmonic.

During the 1980s, Saussy achieved a new kind of fame in a long-running battle with the Internal Revenue Service. The federal government filed tax charges against him in 1984 because he didn’t supply any figures on the returns he filed for 1977 to 1979.

He was convicted in 1985 on one count of not filing tax returns satisfactorily and was sentenced to a year in prison. During his sentencing, the federal judge told Saussy he was “so intelligent it hurts you.”

When an appeal based on the statute of limitations failed, Saussy went underground and evaded arrest for nearly 10 years.

Saussy lived mostly in the West while on the lam, his son said. He was arrested in Venice Beach, Calif., in 1997 and served 14 months in federal prison.