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Wesley Snipes reflects on being jailed for failure to file taxes

Wesley Snipes in January 2020 | CREDIT: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE

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Wesley Snipes reflects on being jailed for failure to file taxes

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Wesley Snipes is reflecting on his time in jail for tax evasion and becoming a “better person.”

A decade after being thrown in jail for tax evasion, Snipes is reflecting on what he learnt while there.

In 2008, the 58-year-old actor was sentenced to three years in jail and fined $5 million for wilfully refusing to submit millions of dollars in tax filings. Snipes’ appeal was denied in 2010, and he began serving his term in a federal prison that December. He was freed in April of 2013.

“I came out a clearer person,” the actor told The Guardian in a recent interview. “Clearer on my values, clearer on my purpose, clearer about my relationship with my ancestors and the great god and the great goddess above, and clearer on what I was going to do once I had my freedom back.”

“The biggest thing I got from it was learning the value of time and how we often squander it,” Snipes furthered. “I understand that very clearly now, having been away from my family and loved ones two and a half years.”

When asked by The Guardian why Trump was never prosecuted or investigated, Snipes said, “Well, that’s an easy answer. He’s the president of the United States.”

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Trump barely paid $750 in taxes in 2016, the year he ran for President, according to The New York Times.

Despite the fact that the President has not paid taxes in ten of the last fifteen years, he has not been charged with any tax-related offenses. Wesley, on the other hand, received a three-year term for minor charges.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump avoided paying taxes and went on to become President of the United States of America.

Snipes says Donald Trump evaded paying taxes because of “who he knows.”

Snipes went on to say that he did not consider himself an “innocent bystander in any of it.”

“I made decisions. I accept the ramifications of those decisions. No one forced me to take that person as my accountant; no one forced me to take that person as my lawyer. No one forced me to believe what they were saying. That was on me,” he said. “I don’t have time to sit back and say I was wronged and recapture all that was lost.”

Snipes is now more positive about the entire process.

“I understand so much more,” he said. “And if two and a half years of my life were in meditation and isolation up at that camp out of the 100 I plan on living, good deal. Good deal.”

The 58-year-old feels that his sentence was unjust. “The law says you pay for people who are experts to manage your business affairs, yet I was included as a co-conspirator with the lawyer and the accountants. Now this is rare. Very unusual situation.”

Snipes, who will next be seen in Eddie Murphy’s movie Coming 2 America, also denied rumors about his bad behavior on the set of Blade: Trinity in 2004. Patton Oswalt, who appeared in the film, alleged in 2012 that Snipes was “f***ing crazy” throughout production and tried to strangle director David S Goyer.

“Let me tell you one thing,” Snipes said. “If I had tried to strangle David Goyer, you probably wouldn’t be talking to me now. A black guy with muscles strangling the director of a movie is going to jail, I guarantee you … Did I go to jail for strangling him? Never happened.”

“I can barely remember [Oswalt] on the set, but it’s fascinating that his statement alone was enough to make people go: ‘Yeah, you know Snipes has got a problem,'” he concluded.

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