News

Rapper Ja Rule admits tax evasion

Ja Rule has admitted that he failed to pay taxes on more than three million dollars in income, and he faces up to three years in prison.

The platinum-selling rapper and actor, whose given name is Jeffrey Atkins, earned the money between 2004 and 2006 while he lived in Saddle River, an upscale community in northern New Jersey.

If the plea conditions are met, the government will dismiss two counts against him for unpaid taxes on about one million dollars he earned in 2007 and 2008.

Rule is scheduled to be sentenced on June 13 on the three tax evasion charges. He faces up to one year in prison and 100,000 dollars in fines on each count.

Five days before that, he is scheduled to report to prison in New York to serve a two-year sentence after pleading guilty in December to attempted criminal possession of a weapon.

Rule's attorney, Stacy Richman, is expected to file to have the tax evasion sentence served concurrently with the weapons sentence.

The rapper appeared in US District Court in Newark dressed in a brown leather jacket, pullover and blue jeans.

He answered a series of questions from US Magistrate Patty Shwartz and Assistant US Attorney Joseph Mack about his income from 2004 to 2008.

The weapons charge stems from a traffic stop after a July 2007 concert at New York's Beacon Theatre. Police allege they found a loaded gun in a rear door of his luxury sports car.

The rapper was nominated for a 2002 best rap album Grammy Award for Pain Is Love. His movie credits include 2001's The Fast And The Furious and 2003's Scary Movie 3.

Source: music.uk.msn.com
Added automatically
1135 views