It would seem that Wesley Snipes has a lot of famous friends.
As the actor’s trial for tax fraud and conspiracy got underway in Ocala, Fla., Monday, his lawyers said that several high-profile people would be called as character witnesses.
Included on a list of about 70 people are Muhammad Ali, Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters, Sylvester Stallone and Spike Lee.
The celebrities may say nice things about Snipes, the star of a wide variety of movies, including White Men Can’t Jump, Passenger 57, Demolition Man and Blade and its two sequels.
But it’s debatable that they will back the taxation theories that got Snipes in trouble.
According to an indictment filed in October 2006, the actor filed no returns for the years 1999 through 2004. Estimates are that he made almost $38 million during this period.
The indictment alleges that Snipes fraudulently sought a refund for a little more than $4 million in 1996 taxes. He also sought a refund of the almost $7.4 million he paid in taxes for 1997 on a declared income of $19,238,192.
Furthermore, the indictment states that between 2000 and 2002 Snipes sent the Secretary of the Treasury three fraudulent “bills of exchange” (essentially bad checks) totaling $12 million.
Also indicted are Eddie Ray Kahn, the founder of a group that allegedly sells fraudulent tax schemes, and Douglas P. Rosile, a certified public accountant who lost his licenses to practice in Ohio and Florida. All three men have pleaded innocent.
The indictment states that Kahn and Rosile, operating through Kahn’s group, American Rights Litigators, “promoted a fraudulent tax scheme based on the so-called ‘861 argument.’”
The number “861″ refers to a section of the Internal Revenue Code. Kahn argues that it can be interpreted to mean that U.S. citizens don’t have to pay taxes on income earned within the United States.
Snipes was a fee-paying member of American Rights Litigators and based his request for refunds on the 861 argument, the indictment states.
One of his lawyers, Robert Barnes, has said that Snipes was given bad advice by Kahn and Rosile.
“He acted in good faith — not with any bad purpose or criminal intent to deceive or defraud” the IRS, Barnes said.
JJ MacNab, an insurance analyst and editor of a website devoted to the Snipes case, argues that a defense such as that offered by Snipes is risky.
“Juries tend to be highly skeptical when that good faith belief just happens to result in millions of extra dollars in the pockets of the defendant.” MacNab wrote on her site. “Out of the thousands of tax denier cases in the last 20 years, juries have only found that the defendant had a good faith belief in a handful of cases.”
Snipes, who faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted, has said little publicly about the case since the indictment. However, he did speak with Entertainment Weekly in December.
He declared he filed returns for the allegedly missing years. And he argued he was within his rights to try for the refunds. “I didn’t defraud the government by taking money that was not mine,” he said. “We never got it.”
Snipes’s request in November for a change of venue for the trial was denied. Snipes, who is African-American, had argued that “substantial pockets of prejudice” existed in the Ocala area.
A month earlier, Snipes dismissed high-powered defense attorney Billy Martin, saying he had lost “trust and confidence” in the lawyer.
Martin represented Sen. Larry Craig in his effort to withdraw a guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge in Minneapolis and Michael Vick, the NFL quarterback who pled guilty to dog-fighting charges.
Snipes replaced Martin with Robert Bernhoft, a Milwaukee-based attorney.
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
1 Comments
#1. Gene 01.17.2008
Hey Wesley, the Federal Tax Court is a bias judiciary because they get paid by the people who are after your money. It is ironic that OJ, after killing two peope, had a right to remain silent, but you and me and other hard working Americans have to confess to every penny, and where it is, and where are your receipts for the things you bought and places you went. Forced confessions went out in old England. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall be permitted thoughout these United States. Income tax is based on voluntary compliance. Did you volunteer to work for forty percent of the time for the Federal Government? Are they threatening to throw you in jail if you do not volunteer? The IRS makes a public blood bath out of a famous person every year at tax time to remind others to volunteer. You can bring some of these issues to the forefront with your very public voice, but do not make this a racial issue or you will lose a lot of your supporters.
Leave a Comment