(Reuters) –
Wesley Snipes was ordered on Friday to start serving a three-year prison
sentence for a felony tax conviction after a Florida judge rejected his
bid for a new trial.
“The Defendant Snipes had a
fair trial … The time has come for the judgment to be enforced,” U.S.
District Judge Terrell Hodges said in his ruling.
He
ordered the star of the “Blade” trilogy to report to prison as directed
by the U.S. Marshal’s Service or Bureau of Prisons, but it was not
immediately clear when or where Snipes would begin serving his time
behind bars.
Snipes had already
lost his appeal of the prison sentence stemming from his conviction in
2008 in an Ocala, Florida, court on three misdemeanor tax charges for
failing to file income tax returns for 1999 through 2001.
In
seeking a new trial, Snipes’ lawyer, Daniel Meachum, had argued that
jurors in the original trial were biased and that the prosecution’s star
witness had his own criminal problems.
At
his sentencing in April 2008, prosecutors said Snipes, a resident of
Windermere, Florida, had earned more than $38 million since 1999 but had
filed no tax returns nor paid any taxes.
