Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion. The actor has been told he needs to hand himself in before December 9 or his penalty could be increased.
TMZ.com reported that the U.S. Marshals Service sent him a document stating, "Failure to report at the designated place and time may result in additional criminal charges."
According to Reuters Snipes was initially charged in a 2006 indictment with trying to illegally collect a $7.3 million federal tax refund and failing to file tax returns from 2000 to 2005. The indictment included felony tax fraud charges, but Snipes was convicted in 2008 of only three misdemeanor charges of willful failure to file three federal income tax returns.
At his sentencing, prosecutors said Snipes had earned more than $38 million since 1999, but as of that date, had filed no tax returns and paid no taxes. The day of his sentencing, his lawyers brought checks totaling $5 million which they gave to IRS agents during a recess. The lawyers also said Snipes was working to resolve his tax debt in a civil setting.
Snipes has since appealed his sentence several times, but it seems the courts aren't having a bar of his excuses.
Snipes will be serving time at a prison in McKean which is a medium-security facility for men 90 miles south of Buffalo, New York.
Snipes was a very successful actor before his 2008 conviction. His athletic prowess made him an ideal action hero in films like "Blade" (1997) and its two sequels, he was also a skilled dramatic actor in films like "New Jack City" (1991), "Jungle Fever" (1991), "The Waterdance" (1992), and "One Night Stand" (1997), which earned him the top acting award at the Venice Film Festival. Snipes was equally adept at comedy, most notably in "White Men Can't Jump" (1992), and could transition gracefully from larger-than-life characters like his futuristic villain in "Demolition Man" (1993) to subtler parts like his uncredited turn as a smooth-talking bar patron in "Waiting to Exhale" (1995). A string of legal problems and bad business decisions left a smear on his name during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and may have precipitated the career tailspin that culminated in his 2008 conviction.
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