Snipes Acquitted of Most Serious Tax Charges
Actor Wesley Snipes was acquitted of federal tax-fraud and conspiracy charges in Ocala, Fla., Friday, but found guilty of three minor counts of failing to file a tax return.
Snipes, along with two co-defendants, was indicted in 2006 on charges he failed to pay taxes on more than $58 million he and his film company earned between 1999 and 2004, the New York Times says. Initially facing up to 16 years in prison, Snipes now could be sentenced to as much as three years behind bars, the Associated Press reports.
His co-defendants, tax protester Eddie Ray Kahn and delicensed accountant Douglas P. Rosile, were convicted by the same federal jury of tax fraud and conspiracy.
Snipes, who used tax protest defenses long rejected by the courts, is among the most famous targets of an Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation.
One argument cited by the AP was Snipes’ claim that the IRS’s own code meant no citizen had to pay taxes on income earned in this country, and the agency had no legal authority to collect wages anyway, because it is not a proper government entity.
His lawyers told jurors in closing arguments that Snipes’ anti-tax views were “kooky” and without merit, but they did not amount to fraud. Lawyer Robert Barnes also said Snipes had told the IRS why he was not paying taxes, so there was no fraud or deceit.
