Wesley Snipes Cleared of Serious Tax Charges

"OCALA, Fla. — A federal jury returned a mixed verdict against the actor Wesley Snipes on Friday, acquitting him of the most serious tax charges he faced, but convicting him on three of six lesser charges. The case was the most prominent tax prosecution since the billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley was convicted of tax fraud in 1989.
Mr. Snipes, who has built a worldwide following acting in films like the “Blade” vampire trilogy, must pay up to $17 million in back taxes plus penalties and interest.
He had become an unlikely public face for the tax denier movement, whose members maintain that Americans are not obligated to pay income taxes and that the government extracts taxes from its citizens illegally.
The jury found Mr. Snipes not guilty on two felony charges of fraud and conspiracy. He was also acquitted on three misdemeanor charges of failing to file tax returns or to pay taxes from 2002 to 2004. But the jury found him guilty of failing to file returns or pay taxes from 1999 through 2001. He faces up to three years in prison. If convicted of the felonies, he would have faced up to 16 years.
JJ MacNab, a Maryland insurance analyst who attended the trial and is writing a book about tax deniers, said “the verdict shows that promoters face serious jail time” but clients who follow their advice will face a lesser but still serious risk of imprisonment.
Mr. Snipes’s two co-defendants — Eddie Ray Kahn, a promoter of tax denial, and Douglas Rosile, a former accountant — were convicted on the fraud and conspiracy charges.
It was the fourth major case in which the Justice Department failed to win convictions in cases against prominent tax deniers. The verdict drew whoops of joy outside the federal courthouse here from fellow tax deniers who immediately proclaimed it another victory that would draw more people to their cause."
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