Snipes To Do Jail Time
Hello All,
Well. The news is in, a Federal judge has sentenced Wesley Snipes to three years in prison.
In case you haven't been following the whole saga, Snipes became involved the tax denier movement back in 1999 after getting hit with a $2 million dollar income tax bill. The feds went after him in 2007 after figuring out that he hadn't been paying up.
In January of this year, he survived a tough trial in US federal criminal court, and avoided most of the felonies the prosecutors tried to pin on him. But - he was found guilty on three misdemeanors counts of not filing his returns. Now, for these three misdemeanors, the judge gave snipes three years in prison.
The sentence is a bit on the harsh side. Snipes doesn't have a record - other than these tax crimes. Typically the toughest penalties are given to offenders who commit serious violent crimes and have a long criminal record. So this sentence seems puzzling given Snipes background. His defense team plans an appeal. Based on Snipes lack of a record, I think they will get some time taken off the sentence.
The moral of this story is: pay your taxes!
Best,
James
Stumble It!
2 comments:
Cripes, three years in jail for tax offences?
We stopped jailing people for stuff like that in the 1860s in the UK! Why not just fine him and have it benefit the US tax coffers instead of drain it by him being in jail?
Hi Anon,
The general concensus around the blogsphere is that three years is too much for the crimes that Snipes was found guilty of.
He will have to pay a fine in addition to serving the jail time.
That said, I've noticed that the criminal justice system in America tends to treat blacks worse that other races. I think it has to do with perceptions and beliefs on the part of prosecutors and judges about the dangerousness of African-Americans relative to other races.
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