Wesley Snipes is known for playing fugitives in his movie but now however, he actually is one. An eight-count indictment unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s office last Tuesday charges Snipes, tax payer Douglas Rosile, and tax shelter promoter Eddie Ray Kahn with conspiracy to defraud the IRS and submitting false estimated tax payments worth millions to the agency.
Snipes is also charged with six counts of failure to file income tax returns since 1999. A federal judge issued a warrant for his arrest but officials hope that the publicity surrounding the case because of Snipes’ celebrity will cause the actor/producer to surrender voluntarily. Neither Snipes nor his former attorneys have returned emails or phone calls for comment.
The indictment handed up by a federal jury last week in Jacksonville, FL says Snipes sent bogus checks worth $14 million to the IRS for his estimated tax liabilities in recent years. He also attempted to receive, but did not get, refunds worth more then $11 million from taxes he already paid in 1996 and 1997. Officials said the three men used an outlandish and false idea-that U.S. citizens and residents are exempt from paying taxes because the IRS only taxes income derived from certain foreign based activities-to further their scheme.
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Celebrity Betting Odds at Bodog.com
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“This case is significant because of the alleged dishonest manner and means used to commit the violation and flagrant disregard for the tax laws," said Michael Yasofsky Jr., special agent in charge of the IRS criminal division in the Tampa field office.
Tuesday’s announcement is only the latest legal troubles for Snipes, who has made a living for the past two decades building his success around action figures and comic book hero characters such as in his “Blade” trilogy. He lost his $1.7 million home in Windermere, FL in 2003 in order to recoup $700,000 in an unpaid mortgage. Also around that time, he successfully fended off a paternity suite filed against him in Indiana that worked its way to him in New York. Only two short months ago his former agents at United Talent Agency filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against him claiming that he failed to pay them commission of the “Blade” trilogy and three other movies.
The conspiracy and false claim charges each carry a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. Snipes also faces up to a year in prison on each charge of failing to file income tax returns. So far he has evaded being arrested because he is in Namibia, Africa shooting action film, “Gallowwalker”. He is aware that once he returns to the States he will be in custody and facing a hefty sentence.
