Wesley Snipes Ordered to Federal Prison

Actor must begin three-year term next week

Wesley Snipes was ordered to surrender at a federal prison in Pennsylvania next week to start his three-year sentence for failing to pay taxes.

The "Blade" actor must report to the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in Lewis Run, Pa. by noon on Dec. 9. Snipes has been free on bail while appealing his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Snipes, 48, was convicted in a Florida federal court in 2008 for willful failure to file income tax returns. Snipes appealed to the appellate court in Atlanta, which upheld the conviction and sentence.

Snipes' attorneys claim jurors committed perjury by saying they had no preconceived notions about the case. They also claim Snipes should get a new trial in light of testimony by his former financial adviser Kenneth Starr, who admitted during a plea hearing last September in New York to cheating clients out of tens of millions of dollars.

A judge rejected those arguments, writing that "the defendant Snipes had a fair trial; he has had a full, fair and thorough review of his conviction and sentence. ... The time has come for the judgment to be enforced."

Selected Reading: The Associated Press, IMDb, TMZ.

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