Looks like Wesley Snipes is going to have to make like Lindsay Lohan.The actor was on the wrong end of a federal appeals court's decision, paving the way for the star to serve a three-year sentence for tax dodging.
If you do the crime...
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges did not err when he handed the 47-year-old Snipes the maximum term after a jury found him guilty back in 2008
Snipes had hoped to either have the sentence overturned altogether and his conviction dismissed or win a new trial on the grounds of a technicality—that he should have been allowed a hearing to decide whether his trial could be held in New York instead of Florida, where it eventually played out.
Team Snipes was also pinning its appeal on the fact that the Demolition Man's former financial adviser, Kenneth Starr, was arrested and charged in May with securities fraud totalling $59 million.
Snipes' lawyers claimed that prosecutors knew that the money man was under federal investigation at the time he testified against Snipes, and therefore that testimony should have been considered tainted
Unfortunately for Snipes, the appellate panel didn't see it that way.
The actor, who most recently appeared on the big screen in Brooklyn's Finest, was accused of squirreling away from Uncle Sam nearly $14 million in unpaid taxes using various shell corporations and secret offshore accounts.
No word whether his lawyers will appeal this latest ruling. Snipes' camp was unavailable for comment.
