Bossip Video

C’mon son! Wesley Snipes has spent almost as long as his sentence trying to duck jail!! And he’s still not tryna hear that pen sh*t.

We know you’re thinking, “But Bossip, we thought you said he was in custody three weeks ago, when he was ordered to turn himself in?” Nope, this n***a’s STILL out in the world coping pleas.

Two days before he is due to begin serving a three year prison sentence on tax charges, actor Wesley Snipes and his attorney argued his case before the sympathetic court of Larry King Live.

“There have been egregious and very malicious efforts to misreport the facts of this case,’’ Snipes told the soon-to-retire CNN talk show host Tuesday night. “I want to set the record straight for the sake of my family…for the sake of the communities I contribute to,’’ added the 48-year-old star of the Blade trilogy.

Among those misconceptions, according to Snipes: “I’ve never been a tax protester. I never took the position of being a tax protester and the press has continued to report that is exactly what I was doing.” Snipes acknowledged no wrongdoing and said that he had “relied on the advice of those who I considered professionals.”

During the King interview, Snipes attorney Daniel R. Meachum invoked the case of billionaire California real estate developer Igor Olenicoff to argue that Snipes has been given an unfairly stiff sentence. Olenicoff got probation after pleading to a felony charge of lying on his tax return about his offshore accounts at UBS and other banks. As part of his plea deal, Olenicoff paid $52 million in back taxes, penalties and civil fraud penalties and agreed to bring hundreds of millions of dollars of offshore money back home.

“The problem with that is the inconsistency of the punishment,’’ Meachum said. “My client is found guilty of a misdemeanor…and is given 36 months.”

The courts pretty much handed Wesley that particular plea.

Prosecutors made no bones about the fact that they wanted the Snipes prosecution to serve as a high-profile example to other potential tax protesters. Before his sentencing, they argued he should get the max not only because of the amount of money involved–$14 million in gross unreported income in 1999, 2000 and 2001 alone–but also because “tax defiers” (the government’s term for tax protesters) were treating the split decision in his case “as a vindication of anti-tax theories and a ‘win’ that will attract additional converts into their movement.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has ordered Snipes to report to the Federal Correctional Institution-McKean in Lewis Run, Pa. by noon on Thursday, Dec. 9th. He will presumably be assigned to the prison camp there. On Monday, in rejecting Snipes’ latest bid to delay his prison term, Hodges suggested that it was time for him to get on with it. “The sooner he begins his sentence, the sooner it will end,’’ the judge observed.

But Snipes, who is pursuing yet another appeal before the 11th Circuit, as well as to the U.S. Supreme Court, told King he’s still hoping to avoid jail. Said Snipes: “We still have prayers out there, Larry, and we believe in miracles. Don’t send me up the river, yet.”

WHAT?!?! Dude: Martha Stewart was more of a man about doing her time! So was Lil’ Kim!

Source

Comments

Bossip Comment Policy
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.