Search

Every time a Hollywood celebrity gets sent to jail, there’s a resounding cry of dismay from the hills about how stars are “unfairly targeted” because their celebrity status serves as an example to others. This is absolutely obtuse.

Celebrities are unfairly targeted because they’re generally morons, who are stupid enough to (a) not hire a driver when they’ve been snorting tequila all night, (b) sleep with prostitutes who are naturally going to sell their story for crack, or (c) try and evade taxes when they’re earning more money than God and Steve Jobs put together.

Wesley Snipes sadly falls into the third category, with the added bonus of being dense enough to put his money in the hands of an accountant who’d already served time for tax fraud in the ‘80s.

Snipes was sentenced this week to three years in jail for what the judge called “a history of contempt for US tax laws.” In other words, he hadn’t filed his tax returns, he hadn’t paid any taxes, and he then tried to claim refunds for $13 million in taxes that he hadn’t paid in the first place. It would be brilliant if it weren’t so profoundly imbecilic.

So who was the guy giving him this outstanding financial advice? Described variously as a “veteran tax protester,” “the worst tax defier in the history of the United States,” and a “douchebag,” (I added that last one but I’m sure it’s been used in the last week or so), Eddie Ray Kahn founded the group “American Rights Litigators.”

The underlying premise behind his methodology was that the IRS has no legal right to demand taxes from American citizens. Therefore, his wealthy clients were under no obligation to pay them.

It’s brilliant. And it almost worked. Except Snipes is going down for a three-stretch, and Kahn is going to be in jail for a whole decade.

Following the Heather Mills cheapskate example of representing himself in court may turn out to be a bad decision for Kahn after all.

At least Snipes is a fourth dan black belt in karate and capoeira. I doubt he’ll be asked to pass the soap anytime soon.

So where did it all go wrong for Wesley Snipes?

In the ‘90s, he was as untouchable as Eddie Murphy and Jean-Claude Van Damme. There were notable performances as a vampire, a drag queen and a basketball player, although like every other black actor in Hollywood, Snipes received most critical acclaim playing drug dealers.

The cracks in his career started to show in 2000 when Snipes was accused of training an “army” of kung fu operatives in Georgia next to the headquarters of a religious cult called “The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors.”

Although Snipes’ so-called “VIP bodyguard school” and the cult shared ancient Egyptian motifs and gun permits, Snipes denied any links between the two organisations. He later moved his training school to Antigua.

Despite character references from Denzel Washington, Woody Harrelson and Whoopi Goldberg, Snipes will be spending the next three years in stripes.

“I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance,” he said in a statement.

In other words, a cheap, unlucky bastard.