Wesley, Just Man Up!

 

We used to employ an editor at our company who no matter how frequently he screwed up - and believe me it was frequent - he nevertheless considered himself blameless.

Chronically late with copy? Production should have told him. Constant misspellings or factual errors? It was correct when he entered the information.

We've all either known or worked with folks like that at least once in our careers, those whose peccadilloes exist only to lay the blame on others.

Which brings me to the poster child of unaccountability - Wesley Snipes.

The action star, as we've chronicled within these pages, was sentenced to three years in prison on a trio of misdemeanor charges of failing to file his federal income taxes from 1999 through 2001.

I won't rehash the absurd details and how blatantly Snipes allowed himself to be duped in the case (or, as some may argue, deliberately defied an annual exercise each of us is required to do), but let's just say that if he worked as a tollbooth collector someone could have driven up and convinced him the guy in the car behind was going to pay.

In the latest round of Snipes' blameless game. which he has already lost on several appeals, lawyers for Snipes have filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

His legal grounds: a provision in the Bill of Rights stating criminal cases must be brought in the judicial district where the crime was committed.

Snipes was tried in Ocala, Fla., even though his attorneys had argued during his trial and later during appeals, that he had not lived in Florida since he was a child.

Prior to going on trial, Snipes described Ocala as a "hotbed of Klan activity." He maintained that he resided in New York, New Jersey and California during the period in question. However he had a home in the Sunshine State and had  given the address there on a number of forms.

Prosecutors also cited Snipes and his financial advisors, for claiming a homestead exemption as a "citizen of the Republic State of Florida."

Attorneys for Snipes petitioned the Supreme Court to rule on the level of evidence needed to establish the proper venue.

Whatever.

The evidence against Snipes was overwhelming and his absurd arguments against paying taxes in my opinion should have earned him another year as a guest of the government on pure gall alone.

He was convicted of breaking the law and now has to suffer the consequences.

Much like our former editor, he's about out of people to blame.

 

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