By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
OCALA, Fla. — The actor Wesley Snipes was acquitted of the most serious charges against him on Friday in the most prominent tax prosecution since Leona Helmsley, the billionaire hotelier, was convicted of tax fraud in 1989.
Mr. Snipes was found 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, but was convicted on three others. He faces up to three years in prison.
Mr. Snipes 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-tax.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&emc=na&pagewanted=print
OCALA, Fla. — The actor Wesley Snipes was acquitted of the most serious charges against him on Friday in the most prominent tax prosecution since Leona Helmsley, the billionaire hotelier, was convicted of tax fraud in 1989.
Mr. Snipes was found 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, but was convicted on three others. He faces up to three years in prison.
Mr. Snipes 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-tax.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&emc=na&pagewanted=print