Speaking of incarcerated celebs, yesterday TMZ reported that actor Wesley Snipes is going to jail.. In February, the “Blade” star was tried on eight charges–acquitted on five of them, he was convicted of three counts of willful failure to file a return. Those three counts will translate into three years, the AP reported on Thursday.
While Snipes’ attorneys argued it was just $228,000 that the actor owed and suggested a lenient sentence, the government claimed he owed $2.7 million and prosecutors pressed for the maximum sentence of three years in prison. Snipes procured character reference letters from Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington (I guess hoping that the guys who portrayed Larry Flynt and Malcolm X would be persuasive) but to no avail.

The three-year sentence indicates that Snipes is being made an example of:

Nathan J. Hochman, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, said, “Snipes’ long prison sentence should send a loud and crystal clear message to all tax defiers that if they engage in similar tax defier conduct, they face joining him and his co-defendants … as inmates in prison.”

So, always pay your taxes, kids. And never make “Blade III,” no matter how much money they give you.