ENTERTAINMENT

Record Promoter Pleads Guilty: Ronald T. Ellison, 50, of Sherman Oaks pleaded guilty to claiming $196,227 in false business deductions on his 1985 federal tax return. Ellison, vice president for urban promotions at Polygram Label Group, was indicted Sept. 11 on three felony tax counts as an outgrowth of a federal probe into payola in the record industry. He pleaded guilty to one charge, expecting the other two to be dropped at his sentencing Jan. 27. Prosecutors said Ellison wrote checks in the names of fictitious people--ostensibly for business expenses--and had them cashed at check-cashing services in Chicago and in Richmond, Calif. At the time, he was an independent record promoter.