been Tarnopol's outlet from the turmoil of the music industry, and it was not uncommon for ball players like Thurman Munson or Reggie Jackson to be seen hanging out in Tarnopol's Manhattan office. Reggie Jackson credited Tarnopol with orchestrating the deal that brought Jackson to the Yankees from the Baltimore Orioles. In 1975, Tarnopol, along with Clive Davis of Arista, Kenny Gamble of Philadelphia International and sixteen other independent record executives were charged on a variety of financial irregularities stemming from a government investigation of payola in the record industry. Tarnopol was ultimately cleared by an appellate court in 1977. The legal costs of the case drained the label's resources and seriously handicapped Tarnopol's ability to produce and promote records. Compounded by a growing conflict with the management of Brunswick's key recording artists, Tarnopol was forced to sell off Brunswick's publishing wing in order to keep the record label financially afloat. According to former Uni Records head Russ Regan, Tarnopol was emotionally devastated by this series of events and was never the same man afterwards. One of the highlights of the federal payola trial of Tarnopol and the other Brunswick executives came when Eugene Record of the Chi-Lites testified that he had been assaulted during a contract negotiation at Brunswick's New York office. Record stated that when he asked for additional advance money on a recording in 1972 his booking agent and associate of Tommy Vastola, whom Record identified as Johnny Roberts, "suddenly began to twist my nose, and when I pushed his arm away he punched me in the face, knocking my glasses off." Vastola and record producer Carl Davis co-managed the Chi-Lites. The last major hit for Tarnopol was the roller skating anthem "Bounce Rock Skate Roll" by Vaughan Mason & Crew, which reached the Number Five position on the Billboard R&B chart in the spring of 1980. However, by this time the landscape of the music industry was undergoing dramatic changes, while experiencing a slump in record sales. Without sufficient funding to ride it out, Tarnopol ceased producing records and closed his offices in 1982, just a few years shy of the CD sales boom. Death After several years of financial hardship and poor health, Nat Tarnopol succumbed to congestive heart failure on December 25, 1987, at the age of 56. Tarnopol's best known hit recordings were “Oh Girl” and “Have You Seen Her” by the Chi-Lites,